Imam's Daughter Finds Prince of Peace

Subaidath is the daughter of an Islamic scholar and imam, who considered herself a staunch Muslim... However, there was one thing she lacked-peace of mind... One day she discovered a Christian tract in her school dormitory... When she read the Gospel for the first time, it resonated within her soul, but her heart was hardened... But a few nights later something unusual happened... Jesus revealed Himself to her in a dream, touched her with His nail-pierced hands, and said, "Do not be worried and upset. Believe in God the Father and also in me. for I am the Prince of Peace. I have been crucified, died, and resurrected to give you peace and eternal life."

When Subaidath told her family about her commitment to Jesus, they got extremely upset... When they recognized she would not change her mind, her father and brothers decided she must pay the ultimate price for dishonouring the family... They devised a crude electric chair... They stripped off most of Subaidath's clothing and forcibly bound her to the chair... But when her father flipped the switch to send high voltage through the chair, nothing happened... They tried different outlets and sockets, but it was as if the electricity refused to flow... Her father got so angry and frustrated he beat her once more and screamed, "You are no longer my daughter," then threw her outside the house, half-naked... with tears streaming down her face-filled with humiliation and pain-she ran to a Christian friend's home across town.

The following day, her friends asked their neighbours what they thought when they saw a half-naked woman run through the streets... One of the neighbours happened to see Subaidath that night, but he reported that he saw her wearing a beautiful white dress... She believes God hid her nakedness, clothed her in the white dress, just as He took away her shame and covered her with the righteousness of Christ... Subaidath remains a faithful servant of Jesus Christ and is active in the underground church.

Praise God that He 'seeks and saves that which was lost.' Please Pray for Muslims converting to Christ... Thank You myCBN Brother's and Sister's. God Bless You Always.

Jesus warned that, in the last days, the world would face unfolding trauma. There would be wars, earthquakes and many other disasters. Yet, to His disciples, He said, "Do not be terrified" (Luke 21:9). He also said that, because of world conditions, men's hearts would fail "from fear and the expectation of those things which are coming on the earth"(Luke 21:26 NKJV). Not only would actual events generate worldwide fear, but the ..expectation ..of difficulties would cause men's hearts to fail.

Today, heart failure is the number one cause of death in North America. Approximately every thirty-four seconds a heart stops beating and another person dies, usually suddenly. There may be many contributors to heart failure, but one major source is the inability to handle stress.

There are times when stress is unavoidable - the death of a loved one, the loss of a job, moving to a new home, severe illness, or going through a divorce - all take a toll. But most of the time accepting anxiety should not be so readily accommodated. The problem is that, just as death entered the world through Adam's sin (see Rom. 5), so the substance of death enters our personal world through our sins as well. Indeed, when we carry anxiety-related stress, we are carrying in our soul a container of death that, without fail, takes an ever increasing toll upon our lives.

Consider our world: War and terror attacks can occur at any time and anywhere. Our stock market and economy continues to bolt up and down, like a wild roller coaster. We have many unanswered questions about the future that are multiplied stress factors.

We also have personal situations. We worry about aging and our health. We have stress at our jobs and stress with a lack of jobs. Our homes should be a harbor of peace, yet they often are a place of strife and anxiety, especially as our children become teens. Someone once said, "A mother is only as happy as her saddest child." It is true for fathers also. We all carry people in our hearts, and as we love them their battles become ours, further adding to the burden of anxiety we carry.

If you want to know how stressed you are, look at your disposition when you drive. If you are always exceeding the speed limit, it reveals the lack of rest in your soul. That extra push on the accelerator is continually occurring on your heart throughout the day, not only when you are driving. Driving simply makes apparent the level of anxiety we have learned to live with.

Paul wrote, "Be anxious for nothing" (Phil. 4:6). Yet we seem to be anxious for everything. In fact, stress-related anxiety is so much a part of our lives that, somehow, it has escaped being identified as being sinful. We medicate it, but do not change the habits of fear that caused it in the first place. But anxiety is sin. At its core, it is a stubborn refusal to trust the goodness of God or rest in His power. Anxiety is a by-product of unbelief. It is a spiritual "terror attack" from hell that is silently killing tens of thousands every day.

God Is With Us

Certainly, I am not suggesting we become passive. However, I am saying we ought to abandon our fears and the stressful anxieties that come from not trusting in God. Our Messiah is "Immanuel," which means "God with us." Jesus promised to be with us, "even to the end of the age" (Matt. 28:20). At some point we must accept the wonder and power of Christ's promise. Those who ..believe ..enter His rest (Heb. 3). He is with us always! To mistrust this promise is to reject the very character of God's nature. This is not a minor issue.

Yet, even now Jesus says,

"Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light" (Matt. 11:28-30).

Let us come to Him. Let us cast our burdens upon Him, for truly He cares for us. Let us break our addictions to stress. We don't have to be tied up in knots inside. The God of peace will crush Satan beneath our feet shortly (see Rom. 16:20). Anxiety is sin. Let us break the bondage of this sin and walk as sons and daughters of God, who are anxious for nothing.

Lord, forgive us for our sin of anxiety... we renounce fear... we declare that our souls are Your property, that You have promised to care for us... we believe Your promises... we come to You and entrust all that we are into Your love and care... in Jesus' Precious name Amen.

Do you want to know God?

Do you yearn to experience the Lord's comforting presence, power, and wisdom? That's good, because God loves you and wants to have a personal relationship with you forever.

The problem is . . .

 .. . . one thing separates you from a relationship with God-sin. You and I sin whenever we fail to live by the Lord's holy standard. In fact, Romans 3:23 "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."

Furthermore, Romans 6:23 explains that the penalty for sin is death-separation from God in hell forever. No matter how hard we try, we cannot save ourselves or get rid of our sins. We can't earn our way to heaven by being good, going to church, or being baptized (Eph. 2:8-9).

Understanding how helpless we are because of our sins, God sent His only Son, Jesus, to save us.

Jesus Christ lived a perfect, sinless life, and then died on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins (Rom 5:8). Three days later, He rose from the dead-showing that He had triumphed over sin and death once and for all.

So how can you know God?

It all starts with accepting Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. Jesus Christ provides a relationship with the Father and eternal life through His death on the cross and resurrection (Rom. 5:10).

Romans 10:9 promises, "If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved." If you have not yet begun your personal relationship with God, understand that the One who created you loves you no matter who you are or what you've done. He wants you to experience the profound depth of His care.

Therefore, tell God that you are willing to trust Him for salvation. You can tell Him in your own words or use this simple prayer:

Lord Jesus, I ask You to forgive my sins and save me from eternal separation from God. By faith, I accept Your work and death on the cross as sufficient payment for my sins. Thank You for providing the way for me to know You and to have a relationship with my heavenly Father. Through faith in You, I have eternal life. Thank You also for hearing my prayers and loving me unconditionally. Please give me the strength, wisdom, and determination to walk in the center of Your will. In Jesus' name, amen.

If you have just prayed this prayer, congratulations! You are now a part of God's world wide Family, Welcome!

You have received Christ as your Savior and have made the best decision you will ever make-one that will change your life forever!

"He is before all things, and in him all things hold together." Colossians 1:17

When I saw the movie The Passion of the Christ years ago, I was struck by the brutal cruelty with which the soldiers treated Jesus... like a bunch of poorly paid drunken legionnaires, they couldn't wait to take out all their frustrations on who they thought was a stupid, luckless Jew... they beat and abused him mercilessly.

The face which Moses had begged to see--was forbidden to see--was slapped bloody (Exodus 33:19-20). The thorns that God had sent to curse the earth's rebellion now twisted around His brow... the back and the rear of Jesus' legs felt the whip--soon the body of the Saviour would look like a ploughed Judean field... by the time the spitting is through, more saliva is on Jesus than in Him... when the soldiers raised the mallet to sink the spikes into Jesus' hands, it occurred to me that the Son of God whom they were crucifying was the very One sustaining their lives! Someone must sustain their lives minute by minute, for no man has this power on his own... Who supplies breath to his lungs? Who gives energy to his cells? Who holds a man's molecules together? Only by the Son do "all things hold together" (Colossians 1:17). How amazing, how incomprehensible that the Son, the victim, is granting breath and being to His own executioners!

Close your eyes if you will and think deeply on the things you just read... consider so great a Saviour who would submit himself to such torture...for your salvation. Think of the cost and sacrifice involved in Jesus' crucifixion... then, commit afresh and anew to live on a higher, more sanctified level as you trust and obey Him with new resolve... Praise your Saviour for granting you breath and being, as well as life eternal... what a Saviour!

Dear Saviour, We are awestruck that You did not turn away from the cross and also glad that You didn't, but travelled the road to Calvary for us... may our lives today reflect our love and devotion to You... in Jesus' Precious name Amen. God Bless You myCBN Brother's and Sister's.

'Don't gloat when your enemy falls, and don't let your heart rejoice when he stumbles, or the LORD will see, be displeased, and turn His wrath away from him'. (Proverbs 24:17-18 HCSB).

How we treat our enemies says a lot about our relationship with God... Society today takes great joy in the falling and stumbling of those seen as our adversaries or opponents... Such attitudes permeate our civil and political discourse... We rejoice whenever our enemies fail.

We grow up like this. How often, as kids, did we mock someone who physically fell or stumbled? It's natural that as adults we rejoice in the falling of our enemies... Sometimes we even attach divine justice to their stumbling as proof that God prefers us and looks out for us against our enemies... Such sentiments, however, are evil in the eyes of the Lord.

Jesus commanded His followers, 'I say, love your enemies! Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who hurt you' (Luke 6:27-28 NLT). He called upon His followers to love their enemies. in fact, for Him, this was the principal characteristic for those belonging to the kingdom of Heaven-love your enemies.

While rejoicing in our enemy's failures and failings is simple human nature, love of our enemies requires our obedience to Jesus... In a world where the misfortune of our enemies provides cause for rejoicing, Jesus demands His followers to live differently, to love their enemies.

Even the misfortunes of those hostile to our faith and God we cannot celebrate, for God causes His rain and sun to come upon the righteous and unrighteous alike (Matthew 5:45). God does not distinguish between friend and foe in His mercy, and neither can we (Luke 6:36).

The test of our faith is not how we treat those who think like us, act like us, or even like us... The test of whether we are true followers of Jesus is how we love those who don't think like us, who are not like us, and who don't even like us. 'Don't rejoice when your enemies fall. don't be happy when they stumble'.

Father, may we walk in obedience to You today by loving our enemies and showing mercy to them, as You show mercy to them... in Jesus wonderful name Amen.

The time came for the baby to be born, and [Mary] gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them. (Luke 2:6-7)

I wonder if you spotted something different in this reading? Instead of 'no room . . . in the inn' we had 'no guest room'.. It's a recognition that the Greek word traditionally translated 'inn' is better translated as 'guest room'.. It makes more sense because given that Joseph was of the line of David he could probably have knocked on almost any door, listed his ancestry, been identified as a distant relative and been offered a room.

What seems likely is that the house where Joseph and Mary planned to stay had only two rooms: one for the family and one for the guests.

For some reason-possibly the census-the guest room was full. The only alternative was the lower part of the house, where the animals were usually kept. Of all the traditions associated with Jesus' birth, one of the most reliable is that he was born in a cave, and it's quite likely that the lower part of the house would have been cut in a cave-like way from the rock.

So, the baby is born, wrapped in strips of cloth and placed in the manger-the animal feed trough. That this was highly unusual is suggested by the shepherds being told that 'the baby in a manger' is a sign.

With Jesus' birth we come to something quite extraordinarily profound. Christian teaching is that, in this baby, God was somehow entering his own creation. The all-powerful Maker and Sustainer of everything-from tiniest bacteria to largest galaxy-is reduced to a few pounds of helpless flesh.

This is the extraordinary truth that we call the incarnation-that, in Jesus, God became one of us. It is an extraordinary descent from highest majesty to lowest insignificance, from unbelievable wealth to desperate poverty. What can we learn from this? Well, we get some idea of exactly how much God loves us. being born in this context set the pattern for the rest of Jesus' earthly life.

There is another thing worth noticing-the phrase that Luke uses: 'She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger . . . 'At the end of Luke's Gospel, in chapter 23, we read that Joseph of Arimathea went to Pilate and asked for Jesus' body and 'then he took [the body] down, wrapped it in linen cloth and placed it in a tomb cut in the rock'. The parallel is very striking.

For our sake Jesus became the lowest of the low, quite literally from the cradle to the cross.

Lord Jesus, as we at this Advent time marvel at the fact you became human in order to show your great love for us, thank you that by your death and resurrection we can now know freedom from the past, new life today and a hope for the future... in Your name Amen. God Bless You myCBN Brother's and Sister's.

There is only one way to escape God's judgment, and that is by faith in Jesus Christ. Hebrews 11:6 tells us, "Without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him". When we trust that Jesus is the only perfect human being who ever lived and accept Him as our Lord and Savior, God gives us credit for the perfect life He lived.

Maybe you know about God but do not know God. The first step in knowing God is accepting Jesus as your Savior. God's Son came and dwelt among us, knew no sin, paid the sacrifice for our sins on the cross, rose three days later, and now sits at the right hand of God interceding on our behalf. If you have ever wanted to know how to receive Jesus as your Savior, here is a simple plan of salvation that will lead you to the cross of Jesus.

PLAN OF SALVATION

God loves you! "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life". (John 3:16).

God has a wonderful plan for your life! "I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly". (John 10:10).

Because of your sin, you are separated from God. "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God". (Romans 3:23).

The penalty for sin is death. "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord". (Romans 6:23).

The penalty for your sin was paid for by Jesus Christ! "But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us". (Romans 5:8).

If you repent of your sin, confess and trust Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you will be saved from your sins! "That if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation". (Romans 10:9-10). "For 'whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved". (Romans 10:13).

No matter what you have done wrong, God will forgive you.

GOD FORGIVES YOU

You're forgiven. How relieving is it to hear those words after you ask for forgiveness from a loved one for what you did wrong! God offers the same words to you. No matter what you have done wrong, God will forgive you. Nothing you've done is outside of God's forgiveness. God's forgiveness is like putting your sin as far away as the east is from the west". (Psalm 103:12). When God forgives you, He welcomes you into His presence where there is joy and pleasure forever. Ephesians 1:7 says, "In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace". You can receive God's forgiveness and have your greatest turning point today.

To receive God's forgiveness, simply ask Him to forgive you for your sin. Here is a simple suggestion for your prayer:

Lord Jesus, I'm like everyone else-I can't make it through life on my own. I'm imperfect. I'm prone to sin. I have come to realize that there's nothing in the world I can do to make myself acceptable to You. But I know that You have loved me so much that You were willing to submit to the cross and die on my behalf. That's a grace so amazing I cannot understand it. I can only accept it. And I do. I accept Your free gift, and I know that from this moment on, I am saved. I am a child of God. And I give the rest of my life to serving You and experiencing the joy that only You can offer. I thank You and praise You! Amen.