Proof The Bible Is True

08/16/18 For Christians in Palestine, life is a Catch-22. Caught in the middle of the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, their Christian faith makes them minorities within the Muslim-majority Palestinian Territories (No. 36 on Open Doors’ World Watch List). And their Arab ethnicity results in numerous restrictions on the Israeli side. Overall, Palestinian society deems conversion from Islam to Christianity unacceptable. And the degree of Christian persecution believers face in the Palestinian Territories depends on their tradition and heritage. Converts from Islam to Christianity bear the brunt of the persecution; they are rejected by their communities and families. And historical churches turn away converts [More]

08/16/18   Like so many young people growing up in Central Asia, Ulzhan* was headed for destruction. Throughout the former Soviet countries, increasing numbers of youth are turning to alcohol and drugs. Ulzhan needed larger and larger quantities of alcohol and drugs to fill the hole in his soul. When Jesus came into his life through the church, everything changed. Life became meaningful.   Today, he serves God in often very stressful circumstances in Central Asia. Open Doors recently spoke to the now underground church leader at a secret location. In this rare interview, Ulzhan reveals how God grabbed hold [More]

07/24/18   When Esther was rescued from Boko Haraman extremist group that is located primarily in Northern Nigeria captivity, she thought her living nightmare of almost a year was over.   But it had only just begun.   Though the young Nigerian woman carried a child she thought she could never love, she was at least free from the violence, the constant rape, the incessant torment from her captors that she had endured ever since the day Boko Haram guerilla fighters attacked her village, killing her father and forcing her and other young Christian girls into waiting vehicles. They were [More]

  07/24/18   Over 70 police officers, along with a team of construction workers, tore down Liangwang Catholic Church in China’s Shandong province on July 17. What makes this case even more alarming is Lianwang is a state-sanctioned church. Those congregations that have been stamped with a seal of government approval usually escape persecution from the staunchly atheist governing party.   Three church caretakers, Gao Rongli, Zhang Siling and Li Xiangmei, who were inside the church when authorities arrived, were kicked out of the building and had their phones confiscated and destroyed. The church was razed to the ground in [More]

07/15/18   The Czech aid worker who spent 14 ½ months behind bars in Sudan has said he counted his experience a “privilege” because it enabled him to share his Christian faith with Sudanese prisoners, and praised the country’s “very courageous” Christian minority.   Petr Jašek also told World Watch Monitor that two Sudanese Christians who were arrested days after he was have been resettled in the U.S., along with their families, since their release in May 2017. A third has been released and remains in Sudan.   Jašek added that, of those with whom he shared a cell during [More]

06/25/18 “Someone to put on your prayer list for sure.”  Admin When a bomb exploded right next to Samiha Tawfiq at St. Peter’s Church in Cairo on December 11, 2016, everyone thought she was dead. But church bombing survivor Samiha miraculously survived the explosion that claimed 27 lives and injured 49.   The explosion also took away one side of Samiha’s face.   Since the attack, it has been an uphill climb for 55-year-old Samiha and her husband Koleny Farag, 79. She can neither hear, smell, nor see on the right side of her face and can barely lift her badly [More]

06/08/18   On Monday, Gallup published their annual Values and Beliefs survey, which details the beliefs of American’s on 21 specific issues. The organization started their annual Values and Beliefs survey in 2001 and has helped detail American’s beliefs ever since.   As expected, the year’s study revealed that Americans believe that gay and lesbian relations are morally acceptable. However, an unexpected study showed that pornography and polygamy are also morally acceptable.   Gallup Just Ranked 22 Professions on Levels of Honesty and Ethics — and There’s Some Troubling News for Pastors   The study revealed that America is split on whether [More]

05/15/18   Two separate but complementary Christian organizations are stepping forward to help parents build character in children despite the confusing, frustrating times we live in.   The left-leaning Girl Scouts has been watching its numbers drop for years and now the long-respected Boy Scouts is imploding after first allowing open homosexuals and transgenders, and more recently, allowing girls.   Read More: ‘Progress’ keeps killing a wonderful organization

The doc made it sound easy. Just walk. Walk every day. Easy for him to say. I couldn’t even make it to the end of our driveway to pick up the darn mail. A quarter mile there and back. I got winded just shuffling around the house. Our mailbox might as well have been in China.   Just walk. Right.   Even more pathetic, I was all of 39 years old. I had my own engineering consulting company with employees nationwide. I was always traveling for work or taking care of Cherokee Acres, our 40-acre horse ranch here in Texas. [More]

The pet shop wasn’t my usual destination on a lunch-hour break, but I was out of food for Izzy and Tobie. I pushed my cart through the aisles, wondering how I’d make ends meet this month. Their food wasn’t cheap. Izzy needed a special brand of dog food because of her skin allergy. Tobie got Science Diet for older cats. I’d settle for a sandwich again for dinner tonight, but I didn’t want the animals I loved to suffer because of my problems.   Boy, did I have problems. Money worries whirled around my head as I walked past the [More]

03/23/18 Paul, Apostle of Christ is coming only a week after the success of I Can Only Imagine, but the market may have room for two Christians movies this good. In its video review, Plugged In assures Christian moviegoers that they need not fear heresy or Noah-like reimaginings in this movie. In fact, the reviewer says, “Let me just tell aspiring faith-oriented moviemakers: This is how it’s done.” What makes Paul, Apostle of Christ so good? Watch the review to find out.   Watch Review: Good News: How ‘Paul, Apostle of Christ’ Gets the Bible Right

It’s almost inevitable. The more vocal you are about your faith, the more likely you are to find people who are opposed to it. But how you choose to react when people take jabs at Christianity is profoundly important. Your response can set the tone for meaningful conversation and increase your influence—or it can close the door to dialogue about faith.   Here are some suggestions for responding when someone criticizes your faith:   Read More: How To Handle Criticism Of Your Faith – Faithwire

It’s no secret that America’s colleges and universities are becoming costlier by the minute — but now there’s far more at stake than just a hit to the pocketbook. According to LifeWay, the primary age when youths leave church is between 17-19 years — approximately freshman year of college for most people.   As young, impressionable students arrive on campus, many are ill-equipped to handle the onslaught of ideological attacks they will face. Combined with an atmosphere that encourages and fosters lots of free time, partying and hookups, it’s no surprise that large numbers — as high as 70 percent — [More]

A few years ago my husband James and I worked for a foster care agency as houseparents where we fostered eight to 10 children at a time. These kids were tough and could easily overtake the home creating a chaotic living environment rendering the houseparents helpless.   I prayed daily for my kids and over my home. I proclaimed that Christ would fill our home with peace, comfort, and calmness. Staff and state personal would come into our home and comment on how calm and peaceful our house was.   It wasn’t because of James and me, it was because [More]

03/05/18 Chandan Devi lay on the floor, her shoulder bruised from the blow she had just received. The last thing she remembers about that terrible day in her village in India was the loud bang of the door shutting behind her.   The 35-year-old and mother of four–and now the widow of Aadarsh-wipes her tears away with the end of her sari. She recounts the story of losing Aadarsh, a pastor in the village, with bursts of short sentences.   A group of 30 men forced their way into Aadarsh and Chandan’s home. None of the children were at home. [More]

03/05/18   What’s happening to Christians in the South Asia country and why?   One of the 64 million Christians in India, Reena* grew up in persecution.   “When I was a young child, Hindu children did not want to play with me,” recalls Reena, now age 19. “Later, my parents were banned from using the local water supply. They had to walk many kilometers to draw water from the river.”   Over the last three years, the persecution Reena endured as a child has increased and intensified in her home country of 1.3 billion people. The 2018 World Watch [More]

“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for You are with me.” Psalm 23 has brought comfort to millions of people on their deathbeds as they have pondered the words of it.   When you get down to it, everything we need in life is found in this profound yet simple psalm. It contains the secret of a happy life, in which every need is supplied: “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want” (verse 1 NKJV). It contains the secret of a happy death, where every fear is [More]

“They threatened to kill me, and had God not protected me, they would have succeeded.”   The “they” in *Abdul’s story are not Islamic jihadist group Boko Haram that terrorizes Christians and churches in West Africa, fiercely attempting to eradicate Christianity. “They” are Abdul’s family.   When Abdul left his tribal religion of Islam and committed his life to Christ in 2000, his Muslim family felt and acted like he had just pointed a challenging dagger straight at them. Abdul’s family (part of the ethnic Kotoko group spread over Cameroon, Chad and Nigeria) always took pride in the fact that [More]

Has God ever sent you little reminders of times in the past when He’s been faithful? I love it when He does that, and I received an email recently that brought back one of those memories.   A friend posted an emergency prayer request for her blog. It launched that day, and when it went live, the content didn’t show up like it should. To make it worse, her web designer was sick.   My friend’s email reminded me of something similar that happened to me—and what made it extra special was that her email arrived exactly four years to [More]

Growing up, I was in awe of the empty old farmhouse next door. I looked at it from the road, admiring the front porch, thinking it must have been grand years ago with fresh paint and shutters that weren’t losing louvers like loose teeth. Often, I’d get off my bike and climb the bank, up the two creaking porch steps to peek in the windows.   Once I saw a woman, dressed in a habit, walking by the old falling down outhouse in the backyard. Her veil blew in the breeze and she looked almost like a dream. I overheard [More]

“A powerful lesson on how to receive what you need from God. This can apply to healing as she needed or anything else.” Admin   I woke up with the same tormenting headache I had gone to bed with and struggled to the bathroom. I grasped the sink with both hands and reluctantly raised my pounding head to the mirror. The face reflected in the glass was a fiery red mask of tiny bumps and large acne-like sores. Hundreds of them.   The horrid rash covered my face like the Egyptian plague of boils in the Bible. The unending headache [More]

I stood outside my sister’s house that cold March morning trying to understand how everything had changed. Police cars lined the driveway. An ambulance drove away and a coroner drove up.   How was this possible? We had all been together the night before eating Sunday dinner at my mom’s house. Could it really be true that my sister was dead?   “What do you think happened?” I looked at my mom, shivering. Neither of us had grabbed a coat in our urgent dash to my sister’s house on the other side of town.   Mom shrugged and shook her [More]

Are you all right?” I said.   The middle-aged woman next to me on my flight home had been teary-eyed when we boarded, and now she was visibly crying.   I wasn’t doing great myself. My 22-year-old son had recently died of a blood clot in his brain. I was returning home to New York after clearing out his apartment in Phoenix, Arizona, where he’d only just moved—he hadn’t even had time yet to buy me a cross for my collection. I had one from every other place he ever lived. It was our ritual.   “Yes, well—” the woman [More]

I tend to get caught up in the process of life. I’m an analytical sort of person and definitely a planner. With every project, I try to anticipate any possible potholes and pitfalls. I build timelines and set expectations.   This was definitely true when our son was in the military and deployed, and I was anxious for his safety.   I truly believed that I could figure out solutions—in advance—to every possible scenario that might occur. In a lot of ways, I was packing my parachute for those life-moments when I would have to jump into the unknown. The exhaustive [More]

Pray with me that one day I’ll be able to go back to my hometown and testify to the people about my faith in the Lord.”   This is Vang Atu*’s prayer.   Vang Atu, a 28-year-old father to two kids, was the first Christian convert in his village in Vietnam (#18 on the World Watch List). He comes from the Hmong tribe and once worshipped different spirits asking for luck, wealth, good health and food; but when he surrendered his life to Jesus, he completely abandoned his animistic beliefs. As a part of the body of Christ, Vang Atu [More]

02/12/18 A new book touting “archeological discoveries that prove the Bible” has gotten a boost from some high-profile tweets in recent days. First it was former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich promoting “Etched in Stone” by Lisette Bassett-Brody to his million-plus Twitter feed. That was followed by one from Gov. Mike Huckabee who had this to say: “Think the Bible is full of nonsense? Do you have the courage to confront archeological evidence? Only if U have an open mind, check out Lisette Bassett-Brody’s new book.” Read More: High-profile tweets pushing ‘Etched in Stone’ book

As part of its most recent clampdown on Christian churches, Chinese authorities have instructed priests and pastors to post signs on churches barring entry to minors.   The instruction is part of a new set of communist party-controlled regulations on religious activities that went into effect on February 1, 2018 and is aimed at preventing children and young people from getting religious instruction or taking an active part in Christian worship.   According to a report Thursday from ucanews, the leading independent Catholic news source in Asia, authorities have begun enforcing the government ban on minors in church in several [More]