God's Lovingkindness

Bible Verse of the Day: Psalm 36:7 (KJV)

7 How excellent is thy lovingkindness, O God! therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of thy wings.

Homosexuality, Christianity and Heaven

Question: Can you be a homosexual and still be a Christian and go to heaven? - anonymous

It should be clear after you’ve read it that homosexuality is not part of God’s plan for humanity. It is in fact one way a person can express their rebellion against our Creator. But that doesn’t answer your question in its entirety does it?

It is quite possible for a person to have very strong same-sex attractions - to have homosexual desires - and still be a Christian. Sometimes our personalities are the products of factors beyond our control. People can be raised in social circumstances that predispose them towards certain behaviour; we often pick up the attitudes of the people we are raised with on a whole lot of topics. Some people are born with obsessive / compulsive personalities, and that makes things like alcoholism or any other form of addictive behaviour much more likely, and therefore dangerous. Consequently a person can find themselves with homosexual desires and have no clear memory of ever making a ‘choice’ to be that way. That doesn’t make the behaviour right, but it does make it a lot harder for that person to resist.

It’s important to realise that it’s not a sin simply because you are tempted by something. It becomes a sin when we give in to those temptations. Jesus was tempted, just like us, but he didn’t sin - he didn’t elevate his desires over God’s (Hebrews 4:15). It’s also important to realise that just because we do sin, a person doesn’t cease to be a Christian. Jesus’ death on the cross for our sins represented a full, perfect and sufficient sacrifice for every sin that we have ever committed or will commit (Hebrews 9:24-28; 1 Peter 3:18).

The Bible also assures us that once we have trusted ourselves to Jesus, nothing - not even our own sins - can part us from him and our eventual home in Heaven because our salvation depends not on what we do, but on God’s promise to honour Jesus’ sacrifice (Romans 8:31-39). But a Christian is a person who has turned their back on sin and is no longer satisfied with the sinful life that was taking them further and further away from God. The Bible describes people who put their trust in Jesus as those who ‘put off the old self’ and put on the new life they now have because of him.

So you can see that it is possible to have a homosexual nature and yet be a Christian. But it is not possible to willingly practise homosexuality, thinking no more of it, and yet be a Christian. A Christian, when everything else is said and done, is a person who has chosen to follow Christ first.

Israelis March Demanding Access to Temple Mount

Israelis March Demanding Access to Temple Mount and Building of Third Temple

Monday evening marked the beginning of the Jewish fast of Tisha B'Av, which commemorates the destruction of the First and Second Temples.

Thousands of Israelis participated in an annual march around the walls of Jerusalem's Old City, with a special focus on the Temple Mount.

Though it is Judaism's holiest site, Jews are still not allowed to pray there due to threats of Muslim violence.

Government officials participating in the march noted that the people of Israel are seeking much more than just the right to pray atop a Muslim-occupied Temple Mount.

They want the Third Temple.

"Everyone who came here tonight proved with his feet that we want the Temple back - and quickly," Deputy Defense Minister Eli Ben Dahan told Arutz 7.




cred: Israel Today

Vietnam pastor freed early from prison in return for exile to US

Vietnam has released a Lutheran pastor and deported him to the United States, reports UCA News.

Nguyen Cong Chinh, was serving an 11-year prison sentence for “undermining national solidarity” through religious activities with ethnic groups in the country’s Central Highlands. He was also a director of the Vietnam-U.S. Lutheran Alliance Church.

A statement released last week (29 July) by the US-based Boat People SOS (BPSOS), said that Chinh arrived in Los Angeles on 28 July with his wife and five children following a deal that saw him released in return for leaving the country.

“We welcome the early release of Pastor Chinh but deplore the fact that he and his loved ones must go into exile,” said BPSOS President Dr. Nguyen Dinh Thang.

Chinh, who had been imprisoned since 2011, was recently further punished for speaking to a visiting US diplomatic delegation about the abuses he had suffered. Last year Chinh’s wife, Tran Thi Hong, described her interrogation and beatings for publicising Chinh’s case with international human rights organisations, and the arrest of one of their children, as an ‘intolerable’ level of harassment towards her family.





Cred: World Watch Monitor

Church in Zanzibar, Tanzania Shaken as Court Supports Muslims’ Opposition to Building

Christian leaders see Islamist bias in ruling

NAIROBI, Kenya (Morning Star News) - A court on the semi-autonomous island of Zanzibar, off the coast of Tanzania, ruled on Thursday (July 20) that a church cannot continue constructing a worship building it has tried to finish for eight years, sources said.

Hard-line Muslims outside Zanzibar City have been fighting the construction of the Pentecostal Assemblies of God building since 2009, having demolished the partially built structure twice before then. They claim the party that sold the property to the church was not the rightful owner.
Christians believe the court on the overwhelmingly Muslim island acted out of religious bias. A previous court ruling allowed construction to go forward.

Pastor Amos Lukanula of the Pentecostal Assemblies of God church said last week’s ruling has serious implications for the survival of congregation on the island, and that the church plans to appeal to the High Court of Zanzibar.

“Our church members have persistently worked alongside with me and are frustrated and weary, but we are always hopeful that God will still intervene,” Pastor Lukanula said. “We cannot allow the Muslims to put up a mosque in place of the church.”

The case has dragged on for more than eight years as the area Muslims have forced the church in Chukwani to incur legal costs of $100 per month in an effort to take over its property, sources said. Pastor Lukanula said the court had been waiting for the church to fail to attend the monthly court hearing in order to rule against it on a technicality.

The church purchased the property in 2004 and began putting up a temporary structure, but the area Muslims pulled it down. The church then spent three years putting up a semi-permanent structure, which the hard-line Muslims also destroyed, sources said.

After the third structure of stone blocks was half-way finished in 2009, the Muslims stopped construction with a court order until the legal dispute could be resolved. This forced the church to raise 5.7 million Tanzanian shillings, more than US$2,500, to fight the case in court, with an attorney from mainland Tanzania traveling to Zanzibar each month at a cost of $100 per visit.

“We bought the land from Harun Gikaro Wanzo, who passed on in 2009, and now his widow is the one remaining who has a small piece of land,” Pastor Lukanula said, saying the church has allowed Wanzo’s widow, Annah Philippo Barihuta, to remain living on the premises. “Now she might too lose that land, and she has several children to take care of. We appeal for support and prayers as we appeal for justice to be done.”

On Feb. 21, 2011, a lower court ruled in favor of the church, which then continued with construction. But after the death of Amina Binti Saleh, the seller of the property to Wanzo, area Muslims and Saleh’s daughter, Jilubai Binti Saleh, filed another appeal to stop construction in 2011. The Muslims claimed that Saleh’s son, Sadik, was not the blood son of her late husband, Abdul Shakar, and hence did not have the right of ownership of the land that was sold to Christians. They held that Saleh’s daughter, Jilubai Binti Saleh, had been the rightful heir.

In the church’s bid to show that Barihuta’s late husband, Wanzo, had the right to sell the land to the church, the impoverished widow and her family have borne much of the costs of the court case. Barihuta is a member of the church.

The Muslims claimed in court that Barihuta invaded Saleh’s land in 2004 and uprooted 20 coconut trees, then put up a house illegally, and that in 2007, Pastor Lukanula illegally put up the church building within a residential area and destroyed trees worth 2 million Tanzanian shillings (US$885).





cred: The Morning Star News