Closer To Heaven
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by Herbert Douglass | 6 April 2023 | This essay was originally published on 29 December 2012 . I know, this question may appear to be a joke! But it has caused me to think for more than a mere few minutes. Most people reading these words would call themselves “Christian.” That is, Jesus Christ […] Source: https://atoday.org/would-your-church-call-jesus-to-be-its-pastor/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=would-your-church-call-jesus-to-be-its-pastor
by S.M. Chen | 6 April 2023 | I lived in an Islamic country for two years in the late 1960s. I have a small prayer carpet I got there, in the front hallway of my house. It contains deliberate flaws in its geometric pattern. There is a Muslim saying: “Only Allah is perfect.” The carpet, […] Source: https://atoday.org/gods-imperfections-reveal-ours/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=gods-imperfections-reveal-ours
Hundreds of thousands of young people were joined by children and adults from across the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the Inter-American Division (IAD) territory to share Jesus’ love and spread hop…… Source: https://adventist.news/en/news/adventist-global-youth-day-leads-massive-distribution-of-the-great-controversy-across-inter-america
The Philippines was mired in conflict with rebels on Mindoro Island for 52 years. Land and money were offered to the rebels in exchange for peace, but nothing seemed to work. A seemingly endless cycle of ambushes and counterattacks left 40,000 people dead.
Image © Pacific Press
In 2017, Adventist World Radio (AWR) began broadcasting in Mindoro as part of an Seventh-day Adventist world church initiative known as TMI evangelism. TMI stands for Total Member Involvement, a program that encourages every church member to bring someone to Jesus. AWR leased time on local radio stations, and local church members got involved by giving Bible studies and inviting neighbors to evangelistic meetings. About 1,400 people were baptized at the meetings, and the broadcasts continued.
In 2019, rebels holed up in the lush green mountains of Mindoro began to listen to AWR. As COVID-19 swept the world in 2020, a number of them decided to surrender to Jesus.
Rebel leader Ka Martin could not understand what was happening, and he started to listen to AWR.
“He was hiding in the jungle, watching and trying to figure out why his fighters were leaving him,“ said AWR president Duane McKey. ”So he started listening to the radio.”
Martin was responsible for the deaths of dozens of people, including 21 soldiers whom he ambushed while they slept and shot them dead with one of their own machine guns. But as he listened to AWR, he also decided to give his heart to Jesus.
A bloodstained chapter of Philippine history drew to a close when about 700 former rebels, including Martin and his wife, laid down their weapons and were baptized at AWR-led evangelistic meetings. In all, over 60,000 people were baptized during the “Earth’s Final Countdown” meetings across the Philippines about a year ago.
“What bullets couldn’t do, God has done,” McKey said.
The Philippine government has granted amnesty to the former rebels. AWR is working with the government and a nongovernmental organization, ASI-member Farm Stew, to help the former rebels earn a livelihood through farming.
“We won’t stop the AWR broadcasts,“ said McKey, who also serves at assistant to the General Conference president in charge of Total Member Involvement. ”The local churches are now running the broadcasts, and we provide the sermons. The laypeople make this happen. This is a perfect example of Total Member Involvement.”
Produced by the General Conference Office of Adventist Mission. Find more mission stories at adventistmission[dot]org
(1)The post Inside Story: 700 Rebels Baptized appeared first on Sabbath School Net.
Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/inside-story-700-rebels-baptized/
“It is a law both of the intellectual and the spiritual nature that by beholding we become changed. The mind gradually adapts itself to the subjects upon which it is allowed to dwell. It becomes assimilated to that which it is accustomed to love and reverence.
Image © Stan Myers from GoodSalt.com
Man will never rise higher than his standard of purity or goodness or truth. If self is his loftiest ideal, he will never attain to anything more exalted. Rather, he will constantly sink lower and lower. The grace of God alone has power to exalt man. Left to himself, his course must inevitably be downward.” — Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy, p. 555.
Subtly, imperceptibly, almost unnoticed at first, our characters and our personalities change based on the seeds that we are sowing in our minds. Sow good seeds, and you will produce good fruit. Sow the evil seeds of this world, and you will produce the fruit of this world in your character. If we sow indifference to God and spiritual values and priorities, we reap the fruit of indifference — apathy, spiritual complacency, and frustration in our spiritual lives. This is why those who think, Well, I know that one day final persecution will come, the ”mark of the beast” and so forth, but when it does, then I will get it together, are choosing a very dangerous path. God calls us now, at this moment, to surrender our lives to Him. The longer one delays responding to the Holy Spirit, the harder and harder one’s soul becomes to the promptings of God and more susceptible to fall for, and believe in, the lies of the evil one.
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(0)The post Friday: Further Thought ~ A Moment of Destiny appeared first on Sabbath School Net.
Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/friday-further-thougha-moment-of-destiny/
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