Gospel For Asia Bible College Sheltering Cyclone Survivors In Burma

So far the death toll in Burma (Myanmar), a nation that has been brutally oppressing Christians, is over 22,000!

www.christiantoday.com/article/3/gfa.bible.college.sheltering.cyclone.survivors.in.burma/18608.htm

Taking A Stand For The Persecuted Christians In China!

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“Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins.”
James 4:17

Taking a stand for our persecuted brothers and sisters in Christ in China.
The spotlight of the world will soon be shining on China as they host the
upcoming Summer Olympics.  While each day I challenge people of faith to
witness to others, in China, men and women who know Jesus are being
imprisoned, tortured, and even killed for telling others about Jesus.  For
most in the United States who know Jesus as their Savior, going to church is
nothing special, some even view it as a great sacrifice.  In China, it
really can be a great sacrifice to go to church, since Christians are
routinely thrown into prison, beaten, and even killed just for attending
church services.

While the focus of the world in a few months will be on China, the Chinese
government will be doing their best to show China as a wonderful place.  You
will see all of the “feel-good” stories showcasing their modern industries
and economy.  I highly doubt anyone will have the guts to tell the truth
about what is happening to Christians in China, and the persecution they
face for being a follower of Jesus Christ.  I know calling for a boycott of
the Olympics to protest the persecution of Christians is a wasted effort.
If the politicians really cared about this issue, they would have already
acted in some meaningful way, other than having our diplomats telling China
that we don’t agree with them on how they treat Christians. So after much
prayer, here is the plan the Holy Spirit gave me that we are going to be
working on for the upcoming Olypmics in China.

Liveprayer is going to be in contact with the athletes of not just the
United States Olympic team, but ALL of the Olympic athletes who will be
competing in Beijing this August.  I am going to challenge those athletes
who know the Lord as their Savior to take a black marker and put a cross on
the palm of their hand, as a sign of solidarity with our brothers and
sisters in Christ in China who are being persecuted, even killed, for their
faith in Jesus. I pray that every Christian athlete will compete with the
black cross on the palm of their hand, and those who God leads to win
medals, will open their hand on the medal platform for the world to see.

Will this simple act end the persecution of Christians in China?  No.
However, it will be a reminder to the world of what the Chinese government
is doing to Christians who live in their country.   It is also an
acknowledgment of all those Christians who have been martyred in China for
their faith in Christ, as well as recognizing those brave soldiers of Christ
throughout the world who have sacrificed, and are sacrificing each day, to
bring the Gospel to the Chinese people.  I pray that one day very soon, the
Chinese government will relent and allow the Chinese people to have access
to Bibles and the Gospel without restriction, to have church and worship the
Lord without interference or censorship, and to freely witness to others
their faith in Jesus Christ.

James 4:17 is often referred to in theological circles as the sin of
omission.  The fact is, it is the sin most Christians commit each and every
day.   It is just as much of a sin in God’s eyes as a sin of commission such
as adultery, murder, or any other sin.  To not do the good we know we ought
to, is just as much a sin as any sinful act we might commit.  We simply
don’t have the luxury of sitting back and watching unrighteousness and not
speak out.  We were first introduced to Saul of Tarsus in Acts Chapter 7 as
he was committing the sin of omission, giving his approval to the stoning of
Stephen as he held the coats of those who were stoning him to death.  Even
though he didn’t hurl one rock, he was as guilty as those who did by his
silence as they killed an innocent man.

I have never been what someone would call a Christian activist. I appreciate
those who are led to work in this area, but I have always taken the approach
that true change is made one heart at a time.  We can’t eliminate
pornography from the Internet, but we can change the hearts of those who
look at it. We will never win the mythical drug war by locking people up,
seizing shipments of drugs, or burning the fields they are grown in. We win
by changing the heart of the person who is using drugs. The way to
ultimately stop abortion is by changing the hearts of the women who make the
decision to kill their baby. So my approach has always been to attack the
root of the problem, sin, and help people find a new life in a personal
relationship with Jesus Christ. However, I cannot sit back and watch things
go on around me that are just absolutely wrong and keep silent.

So many Christians are content to sit on the sidelines, listening, watching,
experiencing the fullness of the Christian life vicariously through others.
One of the popular Christian magazines each month has become little more
than an advertising vehicle for this Holy Ghost Conference, that Camp
meeting of the Millennium, the annual Partners Only Crusade, Women’s
meetings, Men’s meetings, and on, and on, and on. The point I want to make
is that the people of God have gotten very fat and lazy with all of the
Christian celebrities and the Christian entertainment that our culture has
produced. Too many of God’s people have become lazy and more comfortable
sitting on the sidelines watching, which was never God’s plan.

I am a big believer in education and listening to God’s anointed teachers of
the Word to learn all we can. But while we are hearing the Word, we, also,
must be DOING THE WORD! All of the commands in the Gospels, the Book of
Acts, Paul’s letters, and the other New Testament writings were to be active
participants in our faith-helping others, witnessing, teaching new
believers.  God gives spiritual gifts to His people to be active DOERS of
the Word, not idle bystanders. He has given each one of His children gifts
and abilities to help advance the Kingdom of God. Jesus taught in many
parables that it is a sin to not utilize the gifts God has given you.  I
want to make sure you clearly understand today, that it is a sin to not use
the gifts and talents God has blessed you with to serve Him.

That does not mean you have to quit your job and become a missionary to a
third-world country, or sell everything to start a ministry. God may call
you to do that. However, for most of His children, He has called you to
serve Him exactly where you are today. It is no accident you live where you
live, go to school where you do, work where you do, or recreate and shop
where you do. God has placed you there strategically to be a light to
others. The most effective way we can serve God is in our normal day-to-day
life. Letting our Godly lifestyle be a living testimony to those we come in
contact with. Helping those around us in a time of need. Getting involved in
projects and ministries through our local church.

I love you and care about you so much.  Please pray today for the Lord to
bless this effort to bring the world’s attention to the plight of our
brothers and sisters in Christ living in China.  Pray for those who bravely
take the Gospel to that nation each day, literally risking their very lives
to do so.   I will be praying for you today, that these words will cause you
to stop and reflect on your life. Ask yourself if you are on the sidelines
or are actively living the Christian life God has called you to live. Are
you using your gifts and talents for Him? Take inventory today of whether
you are not only hearing the Word, but DOING the Word.  I want to see you be
all you can be and all God has called you to be for Him.

Remember, our greatest and most effective service is rarely those big things
we may be involved in for the Kingdom, but the quiet, one-on-one ministry to
someone who is hurting and looking for hope. Everyone who knows Christ can
tell someone that Jesus loves them. Everyone that knows Christ can testify
to what Jesus has meant in their life. Everyone who knows Christ can share
the love and hope we have in Him with someone. Become a DOER of the Word and
don’t be guilty of the sin of omission!

In His love and service,
Your friend and brother in Christ,
Bill Keller bkeller@liveprayer.com

***ARE YOU 100% CERTAIN WHERE YOU WILL SPEND ETERNITY?  The fact is you will die one day.  At that moment, you will either spend eternity with the Lord or be cast into everlasting darkness forever separated from God your creator. To know for certain you will be forever with Jesus, go to:
http://www.liveprayer.com/bdy_salvatn.cfm

***I am excited to let you know that the Liveprayer Daily Devotional is now available via AUDIO each day.  Simply go to http://www.liveprayer.com/Audio.cfm Also, you can now listen to the Daily Devotional by phone by calling, 1-727-342-5673 or 1-845-510-2722.

(C) Copyright 2008, Bill Keller Ministries. All rights reserved.

Artwork Depicting Jesus Christ Last Supper As Homosexual Orgy Shown At Austrian Museum

Click on link below.

Erotic Jesus sparks art debate in Austria | U.S. | Reuters

Muslims Murder Christian In Attack On Church In Ethiopia

Ethiopian Muslims Kill Worshiper in Church Attacks
Assaults with machetes nearly behead Christian, leave 23 injured. by Barbara G. Baker

ISTANBUL, Eight Muslims wielding razor-sharp machetes and knives broke into two village churches in southern Ethiopia earlier this month and began wounding worshipers, instantly killing one Christian.

Tulu Mosisa of Kale Hiwot church died after a machete blow nearly beheaded him, according to an eyewitness. Another two members of the Kale Hiwot and Birhane Wongel Baptist churches in the remote village of Nensebo Chebi both lost a hand each in the March 2 attacks, and a 5-year-old boy is still hospitalized after his arm was slashed to the bone.

A total of 23 Christians from the two congregations were injured before local militia officers drove off the attackers, who launched what one observer called “a seemingly well-planned,” simultaneous assault midway through Sunday worship services.

Located 400 kilometers (240 miles) south of the capital Addis Ababa, Nensebo Chebi is a remote village in the Bale Zone of Ethiopia’s predominantly Muslim Oromiya state, eight hours by foot from the nearest town.

Without warning, the assailants stormed into the two churches, located a half-hour’s walk apart from each other in the village. Barring all the doors and windows, they began to strike the worshippers with machetes and knives.

Survivors told a visitor to the region that the victims sustained wounds on their hands, necks, foreheads, legs, arms, shoulders and backs.

Every time the attackers struck someone, the Christian survivors said, they shouted “Allah Akbar!” The two Arabic words, meaning “Allah is greater.” are the beginning of the Muslim call to prayer.

“We were praying, and suddenly I heard people shouting ‘Allah Akbar,” said one father whose little son was critically injured in the attack.

He was then shocked to hear a deep cry from his son.

“My wife assumed our boy was dying, so she threw another son in my arms and ran out of the scene,” he said. “She was crying. It was something terrible to see it [happen to] your own child.”

With his arm now in a cast, the boy remains under hospital care.

Policeman Shot ‘by Mistake’

When one Muslim attacker in the Kale Hiwot church swung his machete at Tulu Mosisa, “it almost separated his head and neck,” an eyewitness said. “The machete blade was so sharp and shining. We had nothing in hand to protect ourselves.”

According to one of the injured Christians who spoke with district administrators three days later from his hospital bed in Awasa, 75 miles away, “When we asked why, they responded by machete.”

“I tried to cover my face, but the machete cut my hand,” he continued. “I don’t know what happened then. All of us ran around and shouted.”

Eventually members of the local militia (volunteers armed by the government to handle small incidents in their villages) arrived at the scene and started firing their guns in the air.

“But it didn’t stop them,” said one wounded Christian. Finally, he said, the militia aimed at one of the attackers, and then they fled.

The injured worshippers included a Christian policeman, who finally managed to grab one of the attackers from behind – but was then hit by gunfire.

“The policeman was almost [about] to take over the man, but he was hit by a gunshot behind his ribs,” an eyewitness told the visitor. Later the militiaman who shot the policeman claimed he had been aiming at the attacker but hit the officer by mistake.

The eyewitness said he did not believe the militia officer’s story, since he then stood by while the attacker regained his machete and slashed the downed policeman on his legs and arms.

“He himself was a Muslim with sympathy [for the attacker],” the Christian eyewitness concluded. “It was another militiaman who stopped them.”

Eight of the most seriously wounded Christians were transferred to a hospital in Awasa, while the policeman was sent for treatment at the Federal Police Referral Hospital in Addis Ababa. After the others received treatment for their injuries at a clinic in Werka, the nearest town eight hours’ walk away, they were sent back home.

None of the attackers have been identified by federal police authorities, although they reportedly have told church leaders that more than 21 suspects have been arrested in connection with the attacks.

In addition, three members of the district administration who allegedly cooperated with the assailants were reportedly taken into police custody.

According to a visitor to the region last week, the congregations of the two Nensebo churches are made up mostly of Protestant converts from Orthodoxy, “with an increasing number of converts from Islam.”

But one local church member declared, “There was no sign of Muslims preparing to attack us.”

Muslims constitute 45 percent of the population in Ethiopia, where a traditionally tolerant version of Islam has been practiced.

But according to the 2007 International Religious Freedom report from the U.S. State Department, the Ethiopian Islamic Affairs Supreme Council continues to express concern over “increasing external Wahhabi influence” on Ethiopia’s Muslims by “Saudi-funded entities and non-governmental organizations.”

Nensebo Chebi is situated amid the predominantly Muslim population of the Oromo tribe, near the 12th century Islamic shrine of the Dire Sheikh Hussein mosque venerated by Ethiopia’s traditional Muslims.

An account in Amharic on the Nensebo attack was reported in the current affairs weekly newspaper Addis Neger, an independent political publication.

Update: Kyle Says:
March 23, 2008 at 12:12 pm e

Obviously it was their fault. IF they only gave to TBN they would have been healthy and wealthy. IF they only had the prayer cloth from Rod Parsley they would have been protected from the machetes. If they held an event with Benny Hinn those killed would have been raised from the dead. If they gave to CBN they could have prayed and the attack would have been thwarted just like Pat Robertson prayed and turned the Hurricane away from the US coastland a few years ago. You see these people are so dirt poor and unable to protect themselves only proves Creflo Dollar is right. Heck! Creflo has a plane and body guards maybe if these poor Ethiopians had faith like that they could have been protected by their body guards and made it out safe in their Gulfstream 5.

God Bless Amerca. - Wink Wink

Kyle

Roman Catholic Leaders Complicit In Rwanda Massacre? Why Weren’t We Told This Before?

Genocide term for Rwanda priest - Africa - msnbc.com

ARUSHA, Tanzania - A Rwandan priest has been jailed for life after a U.N. tribunal extended his sentence for ordering militiamen to burn and bulldoze a church with 1,500 people inside. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda’s ruling came after Roman
Catholic priest Athanase Seromba appealed his 2006 conviction, a statement posted on the body’s Web site late Wednesday said. He was originally sentenced to 15 years in prison.

The tribunal is trying the alleged masterminds of the 1994 Rwandan genocide in which more than 500,000 minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed by Hutu extremists over a 100-day period. The tribunal said it convicted Seromba for “his role in the destruction of the church in Nyange Parish, and the consequent death of approximately 1,500 Tutsi refugees sheltering inside.”

Seromba was convicted of leading a militia that attacked the people and poured fuel through the roof of the church, while police threw grenades inside. After failing to kill everybody inside the church, Seromba ordered it to be demolished, the tribunal found.

Thousands of Rwandans have turned away from Catholicism, angered and saddened by the complicity of church officials in the genocide. Priests, nuns and followers were implicated in the killings and some churches were sites of notorious massacres.

The Rwanda war crimes tribunal has delivered 32 judgments, including five acquittals, since the U.N. Security Council established it in November 1994. There are 27 trials under way.

Kidnapped India Christians Forced To Participate In Humiliating Hindu Temple Ritual Then Released!

More than 60 Christians who were kidnapped by extremists in Himachal Pradesh, India, on February 27 were released unharmed. However, the kidnapped Christians were forced to participate in a humiliating ceremony at a religious temple before they were released. Click here to read the news story about their release.
http://links.mkt561.com/ctt?kn=2&m=1001994&r=NTE2NDg4OTczNAS2&b=2&j=MTAyNjA4NjI2S0&mt=1

We also learned today that Gospel for Asia missionary Haresh Kujur was released after being kidnapped March 1. He was conducting a youth program at his church in Assam, India, when a group of anti-Christian extremists abducted him. No other details about his release are available at this time.

Please keep both of these situations in your prayers, even as we rejoice over the release of these Christian brothers and sisters.

K.P. Yohannan
Founder & President

Himachal Pradesh Kidnapped Christians Released

Anti-Christian extremists have released the more than 60 Christians they kidnapped on February 27 in Himachal Pradesh, India. None of the Christians were harmed during their ordeal, and none were members of GFA-related churches as was previously thought. The kidnapped Christians were forced to endure a humiliating ceremony at a religious temple before the extremists gave them anti-Christian literature and let them go.

The radical group responsible for the kidnapping, while part of a system that keeps Dalits and other low castes in virtual slavery, covered their own agenda by publicly accusing Christian missionaries of trying to split the nation of India along caste lines.

This leader also falsely claimed that missionaries offered inducements to low-caste people to lure them into converting to Christianity. Himachal Pradesh’s ruling anti-Christian political party believes that keeping people in the traditional religion brings unity to the state, and ultimately to the entire country. It is reported that the group who kidnapped these Christians is affiliated with the political party.

It is not unusual for these extremists to kidnap believers and try to force them to bow before the statues that represent the country’s traditional gods. If the Christians refuse to bow, they risk being ostracized from society, which brings much shame in the Asian culture in which they live.

GFA’s correspondent is thankful for the prayers for these believers, and says that by God’s grace, they are safe. However, religious and political tensions in the area are still strong. Please pray that these Christians and others near them will trust in the Lord and not fear.

Read the original report here.

Learn more about Himachal Pradesh, where the kidnapping took place.

Gospel For Asia: Answered Prayer Amid Danger In India

One of our missionaries, Gautam Taru, is back with his family after severe threats
forced them to leave their village for a few days. The police, who previously did nothing to protect Gautam, are now actively trying to he