Dear friends & family in Christ, 1) Pr Daniel will be speaking at CTFM in Hallam at the 9:30am service this Sunday 5th October. Please note that this service will…
11th July 2014 Daniel K. Norris
Not being able to use the oven as an 8-year-old, I became quite skilled at cooking meals for myself in the microwave oven. Nearly every morning I would make a full breakfast complete with scrambled eggs, bacon and grits buttered to southern perfection. My mom was amused by her little chef and let me enjoy my little space of independence—even if it meant a little extra work for her cleaning up my messes.
One day I found a recipe for microwaved chocolate cake. For this preteen kid I might as well have discovered gold. I was incredibly anxious to try this one afternoon after school. I could already taste the sweet warm soft cake in my mouth with a tall glass of milk. When I arrived home that day I dropped my bags and headed straight for the kitchen and began rummaging through the cupboards looking for the ingredients.
The recipe called for cocoa powder (sweetened). We only had unsweetened but I figured cocoa is cocoa so what difference does it make? Next I needed baking powder. To this day I’m not sure I can tell the difference between a box of baking soda and baking powder. They look the same, so I put a little baking soda in. I couldn’t reach the sugar, but salt looks a lot like sugar and it was conveniently sitting on the table.
I mixed everything up, with the rest of the ingredients and popped it into the microwave, punched in 10 minutes and went to pour my milk as I waited for my fresh cake to come straight out of the (microwave) oven.
You can imagine my expectation quickly became disappointment as I put in my spoon and took a big bite. It was awful! It tasted like a mouthful of dirt. That afternoon I learned a valuable lesson—change the recipe, change the outcome!
Thirty years later I hunger for something different. Not for a natural meal that can be prepared in an earthly kitchen, but for a supernatural move than only comes from the fires of a heavenly altar in answer to fervent prayers. Our nation is in desperate need of such a move. No doubt, the days have grown dark and continue to grow darker. The only hope we have is found in revival!
Thankfully God has provided us a recipe for revival within his word. Like a family recipe passed down from generation to generation it is a favorite passage of scripture that is often quoted in times prayer. But I wonder… is it possible we are guilty of changing that recipe and thus changing the outcome? Are we trying to rush what requires time and patience? Are we substituting our ideas for his proven ingredients?
The late revivalist, Leonard Ravenhill said often, “We will live without revival, as long as we are content to remain without it.”
I see a divine discontent coming back to the body of Christ and hear fresh calls for revival. If we want to see God’s results then we must return to God’s ways. To truly experience revival, we must look to the pattern the Lord gave us in 2 Chronicles 7:14 and throw the following on to the fires of his altar. (more…)
June 14, 2014 – By Dan Wooding – Founder of ASSIST Ministries
BEVERLY HILLS, CA (ANS) — When Joseph Nasrallah was locked up in prison cell in Egypt, he could never have dreamed that one day, he would move to America, and launch “The Way TV,” an Arabic Christian satellite network that is reaching the Middle East, and his homeland of Egypt, with the Good News of Jesus Christ.
I met up with Nasrallah at the Beverly Hills Hilton on June 1, 2014, where he was attending Pat Boone’s 80th Birthday “Celebrity Roast,” and he was certainly a most unlikely guest with many Hollywood stars attending like Larry King, Jon Voight, Billy Davis Jr., and his wife, Marilyn McCoo, Susan Stafford, Wink Martindale, and many others.
The sparkling gathering was to benefit Ryan’s Reach, a charity set up in honor of Pat and Shirley Boone’s grandson, Ryan Corbin, who was making an amazing recovery and even attended the event. His mother, Lindy Boone Michaelis, helped to set up the group to help others with similar Traumatic Brain Injuries to Ryan. For more information, please go to www.ryansreach.com.
As the camera light bulbs popped on the nearby Red Carpet, I found a quiet spot and asked Joseph about the time he was imprisoned in a stark Egyptian cell, and also about his early life.
“I started as a singer and composer in Egypt,” he began. “I have cut ten albums up to now, and then the ‘media dream’ came to me when I was in jail in Egypt.” (more…)
Dear family and friends in Christ,
I am sure you would have heard by now that the Australian Police shot dead an Islamic fundamentalist (18 years old) in Endeavour Hills in the Melbourne South Eastern Suburbs a few days ago, as he was planning to kill behead two police officers and then post a photo on social media with the ISIL flag draped over their bodies.
Fortunately one of the police officers, even though he had been stabbed repeatedly, opened fire and killed this man. Both officers never expected this young Islamist to attack them.
What is most interesting is that this 18 year old Islamist worshipped in a Mosque in Hallam, the same suburb where CTFM & RUAP headquarters are located, just five minutes down the road ten minutes from where he lived.
Yesterday, RUAP carried out a campaign to visit six shopping centers to campaign for the upcoming Victorian State Election on 29th November. Teams of 5-7 people wearing RUAP t-shirts walked through the shopping centres in Dandenong, Cranbourne, Fountain Gate, Frankston and Endeavour Hills and talked to people.
Pr Daniel and six others were at the Endeavour Hills shopping center, which is right next to the police station where the incident happened.
There was a very heavy police presence in the area as we believe that the body of the dead man was still lying there from the night before.
As Pr Daniel sat down at a cafe to have lunch with the team, many media outlets came to get a comment from him as they recognized him.
But what was most interesting was that three heavily armed police officers walked up to the table and started talking to him about whether Islam and Christianity are the same and whether Jesus was after Mohammed or before.
7/11/2014 Rob Hoskins
It’s amazing to me how the Internet is heightening our awareness of what is going on in the world to a whole new level. Things all around the globe that have been cloaked in obscurity for hundreds of years are now coming to light, many of them taking center stage in mainstream media. Take for instance the case of Meriam Ibrahim, a Sudanese woman who had been sentenced to death for her Christian faith widely covered in media, like the May 16 CNN news report below. The struggle between Islam and Christianity has been going on for a very long time. Both faiths are “exclusive and expansionary”, often causing them to clash.
Little do we, as Westerners, know that to be Muslim and choose Christianity in some nations and contexts means giving up everything. There is a vast difference of interpretation between how I read this verse and the meaning it holds for a born Muslim who has chosen to follow Christ and is counting the cost of that decision: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24).
August 26, 2014 | Joseph Mattera
Every church and/or organization has a corporate culture with norms, rules and expectations that pressure participants to conform. Some cultures are good and some bad.
That being said, there are particular attributes that characterize false religions or become the norm during religious decline in a true faith such as Christianity.
The Old Testament prophets such as Isaiah, Micah and Amos decried religious ritual that was without true righteousness, humility and love for neighbor (Is. 1:10-17; 58; Amos 5:21-24; Mic. 6:8). The line of prophets arose starting in the 8th century B.C. primarily because Israel had a tendency to focus more on adhering to the temple ritual worship of the Levitical system than the ethical lifestyle required by the Law of Moses as found in the Ten Commandments. For this, the prophets pronounced judgment upon the nation, and God dispersed the people and, on two occasions, let enemies destroy their temple.
We have the same issue in today’s church, irrespective of the denomination or expression of the body of Christ.
The following are 10 of the characteristics of false religious systems as taught by Jesus in Matthew 23:
1. There are onerous rules and regulations some call legalism (Matt. 23:1-3).
In the contemporary church, there are numerous man-made traditions and requirements that never arose from the Word, which have become an unnecessary burden upon believers. For example, in many Pentecostal churches the emphasis is on outward holiness related to attire, makeup, the cutting of hair, jewelry and other regulations. I have spoken to numerous young people who stopped attending church because these regulations made them feel weird in front of their unchurched friends. Fundamentalists in the past forbade any form of entertainment, including watching movies, listening to the radio, watching television, etc. These are legalistic efforts to bring holiness that have resulted in numerous churches losing their next generation.
Jesus—perhaps the most significant and influential person in history ever—was a settler. Indeed, Jesus was a Jewish settler who lived in the town of Bethlehem in Judea (which is referred to by some today as “occupied territory” in the West Bank.)
How can millions worldwide accept the story of Jesus, claim that a Jewish family raised this Jewish boy in this city—yet, somehow claim the Jews do not have history and the right to this land? There is nearly a Christian alive who disputes that Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea—the same city where King David had been born a thousand years earlier. And if that is the case, how can anyone in the same breath claim to be a Christian—and say that there is any occupied territory in Israel?
Jordan created the term “West Bank” only 60 years ago. Is that more important than Jesus?
The Jewish people—from the time of Jesus—have a biblical, legal and moral link and connection to these areas that are part of the State of Israel. All of the land of Israel is rich with stories from the Bible—and Judea and Samaria belong to Israel.
Dear family & friends in Christ, 1) Last Sunday Pr Daniel ministered in two different churches in QLD. As he shared the Word of God and some powerful testimonies of what…
August 3rd, 2014 - Gabi Falanga The most amazing rally for Israel just took place in South Africa. Whites and blacks, Jews, and non-Jews gathered, 12,000 strong, in the largest pro-Israel…
Dear friends & family in Christ, Pr Daniel will be ministering God’s prophetic Word and praying for people at CTFM Hallam this Sunday 24th August at the 9:30am & 6:30pm…
5/29/2014 Jennifer LeClaire – Charisma News
Few of us know what we want to be at the age of 9, but evangelist Reinhard Bonnke is one of the exceptions. The German evangelist, who has preached in front of crowds exceeding 1.6 million in Africa, says it was at that tender age that he got his calling to be a missionary.
Now, after 35 years and preaching in front of more than 74 million people, Bonnke is bringing his message, “American Shall be Saved,” to the United States. His gospel crusade will bring his message from the Lord to Miami, Greensboro, Long Island, Houston, and Pittsburgh.
“Evangelism must always lead into the church,” Bonnke says. “This is a central truth I have practiced everywhere. I, the evangelist, bring my nets and borrow the boats of the local churches. Together we will cast our nets into the human ocean and pull them in to be emptied on the beach. My promise to you is not to take a single fish but to leave them all with the local churches. Then I will dry and mend my nets and move to the next place.”
Dear friends & family in Christ, 1) Click the following link to watch a powerful 2 minute video clip on Fox News with an American Military Colonel on Gaza. Hamas…
5/7/2014- Spirit-led Women
She speaks wisdom, and faithful instruction is on her tongue. She watches over the affairs of her household…her children arise and call her blessed…Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all. Proverbs 31:26-29 selected
My earliest memories of Mother’s Day include the white or red roses that ladies wore to church, pinned to their lapels on Sunday morning. A red rose was worn to honor a mother who was living, a white rose was worn to honor a mother who had stepped into eternity. So one of our annual rituals was for me to go out early Sunday morning, and find five red roses on a scrubby little bush that I kept for just that purpose.
We don’t keep that tradition any more. But I have reflected on what my grandmother passed along to my mother, and my mother passed to me, and I have passed along to my two daughters, and now my daughter is passing along to my three granddaughters. What has been passed along from generation to generation among the women of my family is a strong, personal relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ.
4/30/2014 Jared Moore
One argument in favor of gay marriage made by professed Christians and unbelievers is “Jesus didn’t say anything about homosexuality.” Is this statement true? Yes and no.
It’s true that we have no record of Jesus specifically mentioning homosexuality during His earthly ministry, but He didn’t mention bestiality or molesting children either. Does this “argument from silence” (a logical fallacy) prove that Jesus was OK with these things? Of course not.
We do know, however, that Jesus affirmed marriage as between one man and one woman in a one-flesh relationship for life by appealing to creation. (Of course, Jesus is God the Son incarnate. He affirms the entire Old Testament. Yet even if I grant that Jesus’ words, the red letters, during His earthly ministry are more authoritative than the rest of Scripture, the argument still fails.) He essentially said, “It’s Adam and Eve, and not any other definition.” Thus, Jesus rejected every other so-called definition of marriage beyond what was given in Genesis 1:27 and 2:23-24.
In Mark 10:2-9, we read, “And Pharisees came up and in order to test him asked, ‘Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?’ He answered them, ‘What did Moses command you?’ They said, ‘Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to send her away.’ And Jesus said to them, ‘Because of your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment. But from the beginning of creation, “God made them male and female.” “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate’” (ESV).
May 06, 2014
I am constantly asked, “Chuck, why don’t pastors take a stand and speak out?” I’ve been a pastor most of my adult life. I believe I am qualified to answer that question. Here is the stark reality: the vast majority of pastors today are “success” oriented. Beginning in Bible College or seminary, and continuing throughout a pastor’s ministerial life, the emphasis is success. And that means church growth, larger congregations, bigger buildings, bigger offerings, burgeoning statistics, greater notoriety, denominational praise, invitations to speak at conferences, applause from fellow ministers, not to mention the financial perks and benefits that come with pastoring a “successful” church.
And the way to learn how to build a successful church is to learn from those who have done it. Pastors regularly attend church growth conferences to learn from the “big” church pastors on how it’s done. They purchase books, magazines, newsletters, etc., that are all geared towards telling pastors how to build a successful church. They are constantly being schooled in the latest and greatest “how to” strategies of church growth and success. This usually entails more and more sophisticated programs, music, sound, lighting, atmosphere, classes, seminars, organization, etc. Everything, and I mean everything, is geared toward success as described in the aforementioned paragraph.
Most pastors today are in reality not spiritual shepherds as much as they are corporate CEOs. The same mentality, philosophy, and strategy that drive corporate boardrooms also drive the boardrooms of modern churches–to a tee. Pastors act like CEOs, dress like CEOs, talk like CEOs, manage like CEOs, and think like CEOs.