salvation

Demons manifested when she accepted Jesus

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From godreports.com

By Asaiah Logan –

When Yasuko Fleming first prayed to accept Jesus in London in 1993, demon spirits showed up enraged.

“Buddha’s face was there. All the gods I used to pray to were right in front of me,” she said. “They told me, ‘Don’t do that.’ … They grabbed me on my shoulder and pull me back and then I I felt my neck was choked.

After an hour of prayer, praise and scripture reading from the woman who led her to Christ, Yasuko was free.
Yasuko Fleming, from Japan, took a year to study in London. Her landlady was a born-again Christian and invited her to know Jesus.

“I didn’t know anyone who believed in Jesus,” she says. “When she said there is only one God, I didn’t agree,” Yasuko said. “I believed in many gods. It made me feel safe. I didn’t want to get disappointed by one or two gods. I wanted to believe as many as I can so that I feel secure.”

The landlady read her a verse about the people who trust God will not be disappointed. It confronted her directly and convinced her that God was speaking to her.

“When I heard that, it felt like a wall inside my mind fell down,” Yasuko said. “I thought, wow, this feels true.”
So she received Jesus into her heart.

Immediately, the demons manifested and engaged in a battle for her soul that lasted an hour. It turns out that the landlady had been praying and fasting for three days to bring Yasuko to Jesus.

“After that, I felt clean,” she said. “I felt peace for the first time in my life.”

Today, Yasuko leads a Christian art and dance community in Tokyo.

Little by littler, her family members all came to Christ. Japan is 1% Christian and has a strong culture of conserving traditional values, so people are resistant to the gospel.

“It was really hard,” she said. “It’s okay if it takes 10 or 20years Just love your family members. Pray for them. Don’t rush. God is patient.”

She says Japan can be reached one person at a time. “Jesus started with twelve people,” she said. “We can start with whoever is near us.”

Now at All Nations Art Community in Tokyo, she teaches dance and English, runs a café, leads a prayer room, and holds small church services. Sometimes she sings or dances outside. “People stop and watch,” she said. “I can feel the whole atmosphere change.”

Even after all these years, she remembers that first prayer. “Jesus walked toward me,” she said. “And I felt like He had been waiting for me for a long time.”

This article first appeared on Pilgrim Dispatch. 

Saviour In The Sky

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“Saviour In The Sky” proclaimed the headline in a recent edition of The Courier.

The article was a tribute to the Westpac Rescue Helicopter service which has been a literal life-saver for many people in this region and right through New South Wales. Over the years, there have been countless people scooped up from road accidents, farm accidents or major illnesses and taken to hospitals in larger centres where they have received timely care.

Without in any way detracting from the work of this wonderful service, there is a greater “Saviour in the sky” who perform even greater rescues than the helicopter service.

When God first created the world, He had a great goal for the people He had made. Pretty soon, people refused God’s way of living and tried to run their lives on their own terms.

Sin, rebellion, selfishness and disobedience have ruled the world ever since. We live in a world that is separated from God’s love and everybody suffers.

At the right time, God came to earth as a person, whom we call Jesus Christ. He showed people what living God’s way could look like. The rulers didn’t take too kindly to His teaching and so they had Him executed.

If you have ever heard the saying, “You can’t keep a good man down” you will know that Jesus came back to life. He came with a promise: “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.” In other words if we just turn away from our acts of selfishness, and ask Jesus to forgive us, then we will know eternal life with God.

Jesus not only gives us a command to be good, He also gives us the ability to live the good life and to enter into eternity.

He really is the “Saviour In The Sky.”

Only One Way

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Pope Francis has lately made the statement that there are many ways to relate to God. He told a group of youth that their religious diversity is a “gift from God.”

There are many religious leaders who try to sell this idea. It is nice to be tolerant and welcoming of all people, but the Pope’s first duty is to promulgate christian doctrine as understood within the Catholic communion. Christian doctrine says there is only one way to God the Father and that is through the person of Jesus Christ.

In John 14:6, we have the words of Jesus: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.”

It is possible that you could believe other religions or philosophies to be true and hold them together, but you cannot do that with christianity. Either Jesus is the only way to the Father or He is mistaken at this point. If He is mistaken on this, then He can be mistaken on other things as well.

You cannot be a christian and believe that there are many ways to the Father. Jesus holds an exclusive claim at this point.

If you have never asked Jesus to take control of your life, than you should do that now. Tell Him you awe sorry for your sins and ask Him to forgive you and to show you how to live for Him.

Doctor stopped performing abortions after feeling presence of evil in operating room

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From God Reports

Dr. Catherine Wheeler

In ancient times, the pagan god Moloch required child sacrifices. These so called “gods” were actually demons, which begs the question: Has the worship of Moloch returned, this time in an operating room? Those who celebrate abortion, the destruction of the most vulnerable, are doing the bidding of the devil. You don’t have to convince Dr. Catherine Wheeler, who in the early 1990s occasionally committed abortions. But that all changed one day when God got her attention.

“I was about to begin an abortion procedure on a teenager, when the room darkened, and time seemed to slow down. There was an unmistakable presence of evil, and I was the only one who seemed to notice it. What scared me most was my awareness of pure evil in the operating room, related to the abortion I was performing,” explained Dr. Wheeler.

It was a pivotal moment in the doctor’s life, where God revealed the horror and destruction of abortion. This set in motion a new path for the doctor, who never committed another abortion. “I thought I was helping women. The life and value of the preborn were lost in the abortion conversation. I bought the feminist’s lie that women needed to have access to an abortion in order to pursue their dreams and be fulfilled,” continued Dr. Wheeler.

But that isn’t the end of the story. This conversion didn’t happen all at once for Dr. Wheeler, who described the process, “God gently nudged me over time to fully realize the humanity and value of human life.”

Wheeler related how her realization about the sanctity of life “paralleled my journey” back to Christianity and “to walk with Christ.”

“Jesus wasn’t put on this earth to crush people. He came to save people. His death on the cross was to redeem our sins. The gentle hand of God has tenderly guided me along,” she said.

It wasn’t until 2020 when Dr. Wheeler decided to go public and speak out as a pro-life advocate after deeply thinking about how our society became so coarse about human life. “It started when society devalued marriage and promoted intimacy without consequences. You can’t have a sexual revolution, unhindered sexuality, without contraception and abortion,” she noted.

“Sexuality has become almost like a transaction and physical only. If you don’t love the person you’re being intimate with, and that relationship is disposable, why would you love a child who was a result of that?”

“I think the larger issue is that women have been convinced that their value is tied to pursuing a big dream and big life goal and defining that as the most important thing about them. Society has convinced women that children get in the way of what matters most, rather than being one of the most important parts of our lives,” Wheeler said.

Thus, as traditional values became less important, people viewed human life as having less meaning, which resulted in a broader acceptance of abortion. Wheeler also puts some of the blame on Christian churches: “The biblical view of sexuality and intimacy within marriage as God’s good plan to protect children and women (as well as men), occurring within the sanctity of marriage are not being discussed in the pulpit. Most pastors are scared to discuss it. It’s a huge lost opportunity to prepare our young people with reality before the culture pushes a destructive narrative on them.”

Pregnancy can complicate your life, and the abortion lobby tells young women that abortion is necessary to maintain your own happiness or career goals. In fact, the modern culture encourages women to celebrate their abortion. This is how abortion is rationalized and is the narrative that Dr. Wheeler now fights against. “I want to put a pebble in their shoe, make them just a little uncomfortable so they’ll think deeper about the value of human life.”

Dr. Catherine Wheeler is featured in a new book by John DiGirolamo, It’s Not About the dEvil, which is a dramatized non-fiction account of three compelling individuals. You can read more about Dr. Wheeler’s life-changing moment that prompted a Christ-centered transformation to become a pro-life advocate. The plot is not a straight line, as there are twists and turns, some unexpected moments that are emotional, inspiring, and always captivating. The story also subtly shows how the culture and the decline of traditional values have impacted abortion in this country. Books can be purchased on Amazon and Barnes & Noble and more information about the author can be found at https://itisnotabout.com.

You Will Face God

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Last week I travelled to Batemans Bay to visit my parents. The occasion was my mother’s 90th birthday, which is quite a milestone.

Just a couple of generations ago, 65 years was an achievement to celebrate. Most people were not expected to last too many years after retirement. Now, 25 or 30 years of post retirement living is common.

Although I sailed past 65 a little while ago, I find that I am still full of energy, and my brain is still firing on all cylinders. No chance and no desire to put my feet up any time soon.

Regardless of all of this, the day will come for all of us when our bodies stop functioning. While we all look forward to a long life, some people die prematurely in accidents and other causes.

While death and taxes are the two unavoidable facts of life, most people these days give little thought to death, even if they manage to avoid taxes.

The Bible teaches us that after our bodies die, our souls continue to live. We will all stand before God to give an account of our lives. Jesus used the analogies of sheep being sorted from goats and weeds being separated from wheat. Those who have lived perfect lives go to a place of unimaginable joy called Heaven. Those who have not lived perfect lives go to a place of suffering called Hell.

But none of us is perfect. We have all sinned and fallen short of God’s standard.

So how can anyone be saved from the awful destiny?

Jesus died to pay for the sins of everyone. He can take away your failures, crimes and mistakes.

Financial advisers are constantly urging us to prepare for retirement.

Spiritual advisers want you to prepare for what comes after that. You don’t need a huge super fund, or any fund at all.

Say a prayer and sincerely ask Jesus to forgive you. Resolve to live for him as many days or years that you have left. Go to a church where you will find help and support in following through on that decision.

You were made for eternity.

Life Matters

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It has been a bad summer, apparently, for people drowning, particularly at the beaches along our coastline. People have been taking risks such as swimming at unpatrolled beaches, entering water that was dangerously rough and so on. In a couple of cases, people have died in the process of rescuing somebody else who was in trouble.

We add to those people dying in the water to those who lost their lives on the roads, and it is clear that it has been a dangerous summer for many people.

When I was young, I used to love the water. Waves were fun, and the beach was a place that seemed almost magical in many ways. There were a few times when I could have been one of those who was swept out in a rip or suffered an injury from a dumper.

The phrase, “but for the grace of God” springs to mind when I think of those situations.

We are used to thinking about our lives stretching on for ever, with no thought that it might end one day. None of us knows when that time will come. For any of us it could be much sooner than we ever thought possible.

The Bible tells us that “each person is destined to die once and after that comes judgement,” (Hebrews 9:27). There is no replay or second chance. We all get one shot at life.

The Good News is that Jesus, in His death on the cross, paid the price for us. All who put their trust in Jesus can be sure that everything is forgiven and the slate is wiped clean.

Taking a risk in the surf or on the road can be fatal. Taking a risk with God has eternal consequences.

God Has A Plan For Gaza

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From Faithwire.com

‘God Has a Plan’: Former Terrorist Turned Christian Predicts Thousands in Gaza Will Come to Faith in Jesus

Joel Rosenberg on TBN/YouTube screenshot
Joel Rosenberg on TBN/YouTube screenshot
A one-time terrorist who turned to faith in Jesus in the 1990s is predicting thousands of Gazans will become Christians as the war between Hamas and Israel rages on.

The 73-year-old Taysir “Tass” Abu Saada, a former member of the Fatah terrorist group, recently told Joel Rosenberg, an American-Israeli communications strategist, he believes the war will lead many in Gaza to feel hopeless, abandoned, and lied to by Hamas, the terror group governing Gaza. As a result, he predicted they will turn from Islam and toward Christianity.

Listen to them on the latest episode of “Quick Start” 👇

“Hamas is an ideology that is spread among many people, not only in the Gaza Strip but all over the world,” Saada explained on the “Rosenberg Report” from TBN. “However, God has a plan. And I believe the Arabs’ and the Jews’ plan is also part of that — and that is where my hope is.”

He continued, “That is why I am back in the Holy Land, to move to the Gaza Strip and take part in rebuilding. I believe, with all the destruction, with all that happened, with the hardship the Palestinians have gone through, they cannot sit back, but will ask, ‘Why?’ God is going to do a lot of work [in Gaza], and I want to be a part of that.”

 

Saada, born in Gaza, was overcome with rage toward Jewish Israelis in the aftermath of the Six Day War in 1967. His family moved to Saudi Arabia and Qatar when he was young and, ultimately, ran away to join Fatah and fight to support Yasser Arafat, the former chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

“After the Six Day War, I felt as if I was having a nervous breakdown, and my hatred just grew and grew,” Saada said in his testimony, published on jewishroots.net. “I did not understand how we could lose so many wars against Israel. We were bigger than Israel in numbers and size, we had more equipment — everything we had was more than they had, but still, we lost the wars against them.”

“I was thinking that, once again, our leaders sold us to the Jews,” he added. “That was when I decided to go and fight for our land, which I believed was ours.”

A series of events landed Saada in legal trouble that ultimately sent him to the U.S. After integrating, he married an American woman and met a Christian who led him to faith in Jesus.

The Christian man told Saada, “If you want to experience the peace of mind that I have, you have to love the Jews.” He recalled, “I completely froze and asked him how he could even think of such a — to love the Jews? He knew I hated them. For me, as for most Arabs, a good Jew was a dead Jew.”

Saada and his faith mentor read Scripture together and, the following day, the former terrorist felt an urge to pray.

“The first people that came to my heart to pray for were the Jewish people,” said Saada. “I was praying, ‘Oh, God, bless your people, Israel. God, gather them to the Promised Land.’”

The ex-terrorist told Rosenberg he believes the world is now enduring the end times.

“What we are seeing today happening is really one of the signs of the end of times, because it is not normal — the destruction that is taking place,” he told the host. “The evil hand of Hamas is attacking Israelis in a radical, very evil way. Naturally, Israel had to respond and defend itself.”

But as the destruction and horror continues, he feels a glimmer of eternal hope.

Saada said that, in time, “the harvest is going to be huge,” referring to the number of Gazans he is confident will ultimately turn to the same faith in Jesus he has found.

Desperate For A Rescuer

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As I write this, the world is captivated by the fate of five people in a submersible craft that seems to have gone missing in near the wreck of the Titanic. It seems there has been some kind of mechanical failure. Even if they are on the surface, the passengers are locked inside an air tight container with limited oxygen.

To make matters worse, they are in a very remote part of the ocean, with no communications and could be up to 4 kilometres beneath the surface.

The situation is similar to the underground mining disasters that occur from time to time, where a collapse prevents people from returning to the surface unless the blockage can be removed.

It must be a terrifying situation to be aware that unless somebody intervenes, you will die in a matter of days.

Of course all of us are in a similar position, whether we realise it or not. When you are young, it feels like you will live for ever. As you grow older, you become aware that you are mortal, but t is still a theoretical knowledge.

For everyone of us there is a date set when we leave this life. It might be a few hours away or another 50 years. You will die.

For christians there is a wonderful assurance that our last breath here will be our first breath in eternity. Heaven will be a place of great joy and unmarked by any of the things that make life bitter here.

The Bible tells us that God has launched a rescue plan and everyone who wants to can be redeemed. One of the most famous sentences in the Bible is John 3:16. “ For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

Reach out to God and receive His promise.