United States of America
Terra Firma
"For the earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof.” 1 Corinthians 10:26
“The earth is the LORD’S, and the fulness thereof, the world, and they that dwell therein. For He hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods.” Psalm 24:1-2
“Yes, I will rejoice over them to do them good, and I will assuredly plant them in this land, with all My heart and with all My soul.” Jeremiah 32:41
God’s connection to the land should be obvious to even the casual observer. He created it, established it’s boundaries and filled it with infinite variety and abundance. For His children, the children of promise, it is the designated place of blessing. It is our ground on which to stand. The very land itself is travailing in agreement with God’s ultimate plan of revealing His children’s full inheritance.
Our hope is not in a restoration of past blessings. Our present and future is the location of the fullness of all that has been promised. It is not time to recapture memories of bygone days. It is time to press in to the fulfillment of all that has been prophesied over us. While much of the Kingdom of God is ‘otherworldly,’ the stage on which He has chosen to play out the eternal epic is 'terra firma'.
David once cried out, “I would have fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.” Our God is the God of here and now: real time, real world blessing. And His reach extends to the most remote unheralded regions. His strategy is to pour out His goodness, all of it, on you and your dwelling place. Can you grasp the concept that God has committed Himself with ‘ALL His heart and ALL His soul’ found in Jeremiah 32:1? And to what has He committed His all? To plant you in your land and to do you good. As a matter of fact, He rejoices in it. It is time to join in His festivities.
I believe that there is a place for every believer that God has prepared as ‘fruitful ground’. This place is both spiritual and grounded in an earthly expression, a place for His goodness to be displayed. For the children of Israel the imperative was to arrive at that place at all cost. God’s focus was on getting them to that place of fulfilled promise.
He has a place and a spiritual condition for you that is the earthly expression of the heavenly reality, the place of Kingdom come. If you are dislocated it is time to relocate. First the feet must be planted firmly on the solid rock of revelation. No storm can knock you off that rock. Out of the revelatory flow comes the stability of place, your place. He has one prepared for you.
In Jesus we are blessed with all the goodness of God. In Christ, we are the fulness of the earthly expression of the Kingdom. In Christ, we can do all things anywhere anytime. We are carrying the fulfillment of all of His promises wherever our feet touch the ground. Our task is to spread it around. There are two methods of planting seeds employed by farmers. One is where you put one seed in at a time in a specific place. The other is closer to the Kingdom methodology. Farmers call it ‘broadcasting’, seeds are scattered over ground and wherever they land is where they come up and bear fruit. God is broadcasting the seed of the Kingdom throughout the earth. Where it takes root and bears fruit is fruitful ground. Finding your fruitful ground is the destiny for which you have been prepared. Don’t stop ‘broadcasting’ the seeds until you find the place that bears fruit.
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Baptists plan to launch 100 churches all at once.
South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia
In an effort to make the church more accessible, American Baptists announced a plan to launch 100 communities in 100 cities across South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia, and on the internet, all at once, starting October 10, 2010. The initiative at www.onebigcity.com (still in beta) combines web communities with face-to-face interaction (meet-ups). "250 years ago, leaders like John Wesley led a revolution by taking the church outside its walls to where the people are," says Jamie Osborne, the group's pastor. "We're doing the same thing. It just happens that the internet is now where people are."
The group's research indicated that the flexibility, convenience and non-threatening nature of the internet appealed to the un-churched or under-churched segment, but that people still wanted to have some sort of human connection. After more than a year of working out a funding model, City Church is now in the process of interviewing and hiring its first 100 'community pastors' to serve in local communities. These individuals will be a cross-blend of traditional pastor and church planter, Osborne said. "Churches spend so much money on maintaining buildings and general overhead. Our model allows more dollars to flow into actual ministry."
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Why the Army is bowing to Hamas-linked CAIR
Political Correctness: The Army disinvited the Rev. Franklin Graham from praying at the Pentagon because he might offend Muslim soldiers. But isn't that the same attitude that led to the Fort Hood massacre?
The Army didn't want to offend a Muslim soldier — Maj. Nidal Hasan — who openly threatened "infidels" in Islamic diatribes. Brass ignored his jihadist rants and treated him with kid gloves. Hasan later opened fire on soldiers.
An internal Pentagon probe mentioned none of this, so no one should be surprised that the painful lesson of Fort Hood has not been learned — that catering to militant Muslims does not win their hearts and minds. In fact, it can embolden them.
In the latest chapter of military PC, the Pentagon canceled the appearance of Graham, son of evangelist Billy Graham, at an upcoming National Day of Prayer event because of Muslim complaints over his past "inappropriate" remarks about Islam.
After the 9/11 attacks, Graham described Islam as "a very evil and wicked religion." He explained that he thought it was his "responsibility to speak out against the terrible deeds that are committed as a result of Islamic teaching."
The Council on American-Islamic Relations called on its supporters to pressure the Pentagon to withdraw its May 6 prayer invitation to Graham. CAIR hailed the Pentagon's cave-in as a "victory."
No matter the circumstances, bowing to such a radical group — one with proven terror ties — is a new low in political correctness, even for the Army.
Another group, the liberal Military Religious Freedom Foundation, joined CAIR in complaining about the "Islamophobic" Graham. It argued that the Pentagon showed religious favoritism toward Christianity in inviting him.
Really? The Pentagon holds annual Iftar dinners for Muslims and is building mosques for them. It's also actively recruiting Muslim soldiers, even after the Fort Hood betrayal, and offering them leave for Islamic holidays.
Yet letting an evangelical preacher pray is too "Christian-themed"? Please. If the Pentagon favors any faith these days, it's Islam.
Our military leadership has been impaired by a PC culture that blinds it to even internal Islamic threats. Now comes this affront to one of the nation's leading evangelicals, who has boldly warned about such threats.
As it happens, President Obama met over the weekend with the 91-year-old Billy Graham at his North Carolina home as part of a pre-scheduled meeting. Out of respect for the elder Graham, the commander in chief ought to overrule the Pentagon and re-invite his son to speak on the National Day of Prayer.
But given this president's obsession with apologizing to the Muslim world, we won't hold our breath.
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