God Blesses Those Who Bless Israel

steve Dear Friend,

Thank you for subscribing to our Standing With Israel weekly e-newsletter, which is usually sent out on Fridays. But on New Year’s Day it isn’t being published, which gives me an opportunity to ask you to bless Israel with an end-of-the-year donation through Christian Life Missions, our nonprofit partner. I say this because I believe that like me, you believe that God blesses those who bless Israel.

Genesis 12:3 says God promises Abraham: “‘I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you'” (NIV).

In my own life I have seen proof of this promise; when I have blessed Israel and the Jewish people, God has showered His blessings on me. That is why we have set up the “Bless Israel” fund through Christian Life Missions.

Over the last several years through Christian Life Missions and friends like you, we have helped buy an ambulance for Israel; helped rebuild a war-torn city near the Lebanese border; and provided bomb shelters near the Gaza Strip where Kassam rockets from Hamas rain terror on Israeli citizens who had no where to run and hide.

Many ministries raise money for Israel. However, some raise money for Israel but the funds never get to the intended destination, according to what I’ve been told by Israeli insiders. This has also motivated me to make a way for those who want to bless Israel to do so with integrity through a ministry like Christian Life Missions. We are a small ministry with little overhead expense. Most of what you give will go directly to “Bless Israel.” Christian Life Missions has been around since the mid-1950s and has been a charter member of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability since 1980. Over the years Christian Life Missions has functioned with the utmost integrity and without a shred of controversy, so you can give with confidence.

As 2009 winds up and many of us think of places to give before the end of the year, won’t you band together with others who (like me) believe in blessing Israel? If your gift is at least $30 we will give you a copy of David Brog’s book Standing With Israel, which tells from a Jewish perspective why Bible-believing Christians are Israel’s best friend. My company donates the books so everything you give can go to bless the Jewish people and Israel. We have sold or given away nearly 150,000 copies of this important book. If you haven’t read it, you need to because it will bless you.

Never before have we asked for donations from the readers of the Standing With Israel e-newsletter. But as we sent out this request to our regular Christian Life Missions donors we decided to include readers of this newsletter because we want you to also receive a blessing by blessing the Jewish people and Israel!

Donations can be made by sending a check made payable to “Christian Life Missions,” designated for “Bless Israel” in the check’s memo line, and sent to Christian Life Missions, 600 Rinehart Road, Lake Mary, FL 32746. All checks postmarked on or before December 31, 2009 will receive a 2009 tax receipt.

Donations can also be made online at with a credit card or through PayPal. To me, that’s an even quicker and easier way to give.

Please check out our new Christian Life Missions Web site, , which tells about all the ministries we support. But the ones closest to my own heart are those that bless God’s chosen people. Won’t you dig down and give a generous offering this last week of the year—as I’m doing?

God bless you for your generosity.

Steve Strang
President, Christian Life Missions
Founder and Publisher of Charisma magazine

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The Gospel According to Lost

lost By Chris Seay | Thomas Nelson | softcover | 224 pages | $

Fans of ABC’s Lost now have a chance to ponder the mysteries of the island with a fellow fanatic. Bouncing around “smoke monster” theories and speculations about who Jacob is has created a sense of camaraderie among faithful Lost viewers. An admitted fan, Chris Seay readily joins in these conversations and takes them a step further revealing spiritual lessons gleaned from the hit show.

“I do get some odd looks and spirited resistance from the religious establishment at times when I tell them that I hear God speak to me through the popular culture,” Seay writes. “But I am not sure that this kind of book is vastly different from the ways that Jesus taught His disciples; they simply walked through life together.”

The Gospel According to Lost will take fans on a satisfying journey through the first five seasons of the television series with insightful spiritual lessons aficionados may be surprised they didn’t see before. Dissecting the lives of the characters with his sharp wit, Seay turns the castaways’ struggles into biblical parallels. Hurley’s superstitious belief that he has been cursed becomes a lesson about the power of words. The transformation of Sawyer, the “Patron Saint of Kindhearted Con Men,” becomes a lesson in redemption.

Good versus evil. Love versus hate. Peace versus fear. The Gospel According to Lost will make readers think about the deeper issues of life. The book will prove to be a conversation-starter as the popular television series heads toward its final season.

Click here to purchase this book.

Where Is God Going? Seven Spiritual Trends of the ’00 Decade

The last 10 years weren’t just about terrorism and recession. Amid the storm clouds, God was working in profound ways.

We didn’t know what to call it—was it the ’00s?—yet we’ve just passed through quite a decade. We had natural disasters (the 2004 Asian tsunami, Hurricane Katrina in 2005), financial meltdowns (bank failures and 10 percent unemployment) and global conflict (9/11 and the war on terror). It brought doom and gloom on one hand and technological breakthroughs on the other. What a ride it has been.

How has God been working during this tumultuous season? Here’s my list of seven megatrends that marked these last 10 years:

1. Third-World Christianity kept growing. There are now about 600 million Christians in Africa. Protestant Christianity grew 600 percent in Vietnam in the last decade. In China, where a 50,000-member megachurch was raided in Shanxi province a few weeks ago, there are now an estimated 130 million churchgoers.

“We have no reason to fear the future. Whatever challenges loom ahead, the
same God who carried us through this past decade will give us sucess in
the next one.”

Astounding church growth has occurred in Guatemala, Brazil, India and Ethiopia. In Nepal, which had no Christians in 1960, there are now a half-million believers. The Christian population of Indonesia has mushroomed from 1.3 million to 11 million in 40 years.

Smug scholars in Europe and the United States love to cite Islam as the world’s fastest-growing religion, but observers know the facts: Christianity, while waning especially in Europe, is growing faster than ever in the Southern hemisphere. Philip Jenkins, who wrote The Next Christendom in 2002, declared: “The center of gravity has moved to the global south. So if we’re looking for the religion that is going to affect the largest number of lives in the 21st century, it is almost certainly going to be Christianity.”

2. The digital revolution opened new doors for evangelism. This decade began with fears that a Y2K virus would shut down all computers. The opposite happened. Technology exploded. “Google” became a verb, more than 200 million people joined Facebook, and analog TV faded into history along with phone books, answering machines, road maps, cassette tapes, floppy disks and rolodexes—unless you purchased those items on eBay for sentimental reasons.

Traditionalists complained about all the new terms technology added to our lexicon: TiVo, Twitter, Skype, iPod, iTunes, YouTube, Hulu, Kindle, webcams. But the shift to digital media happened faster than the speed of a wireless signal. It will forever change the way we live, work and play. Rather than fighting change, we’d best find God in the swift current and discover how He wants us to use new media. The possibility of reaching every person on this planet with the gospel has never been this huge.

3. The global economic crisis didn’t stop the church. It seemed as if God pushed a great big reset button in 2007. The mortgage bubble burst, banks were in trouble and credit dried up. When U.S. gas prices hit $4 a gallon in 2008, people feared that the American Dream had died.

Yet, amazingly, while hundreds of thousands of people lost jobs and the government was bailing out GM and Chrysler, charitable giving to churches actually went up 5.5 percent in 2008, even though other forms of giving declined. Faith actually thrives in a recession.

4. As militant Islam increased, so did a backlash. On 9/11, terrorists hijacked our planes and crashed them into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and Pennsylvania farmland. But in some parts of the world where radical Islam is predominant, protest movements flourished. This was never more evident than in 2009 when Iranian youth activists took to the streets to denounce their own tyrannical government. In other parts of the Middle East, Muslims are finding Jesus Christ after having supernatural dreams about Him. Terrorists did not stop democracy—or the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

5. Spiritual hunger grew more intense. Although secular culture seemed to grow more hostile to Christian faith and values during the ’00 decade, movies, books and music reflected a growing interest in spirituality—everything from atheism to pantheism to vampires to The DaVinci Code—and Christian ideas competed for the global stage.

The Passion of the Christ, Mel Gibson’s 2004 film about the Crucifixion, became the highest-grossing non-English film of all time—and Egyptian Muslims lined up to see it for weeks. Disney’s 2005 version of the C.S. Lewis classic, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, became one of the highest-grossing films ever. And Christian books such as The Prayer of Jabez (2000), The Purpose-Driven Life (2002) and The Shack (2007) put Christian themes at the top of mainstream best-seller lists while a relatively homemade Christian movie, Fireproof, became the highest-grossing independent film of 2008.

6. The charismatic movement experienced a painful but needed purging. Although global Pentecostalism continued to grow, parts of the independent charismatic movement went into a tailspin. Marred by high-profile divorces, sex scandals and a credibility crisis, segments of the charismatic church fell on hard times. The overhaul of Oral Roberts University in 2008 seemed to be a prophetic harbinger of a movement-wide housecleaning.

At the close of the decade, charismatic churches were energized when thousands of youth gathered for protracted prayer meetings at Mike Bickle’s International House of Prayer in Kansas City, Mo. Those youth were not focused on the carnal prosperity message but on personal holiness, Spirit-empowered evangelism and prophetic social justice—values that are now emerging as key components of a new charismatic agenda.

7. A “healthy church” movement emerged. Refreshing younger voices arose on the charismatic/evangelical scene in the ’00s—reminding us that when Jezebel threatens, God always reserves His prophets in a cave for a crucial hour. Although this young movement has its stars and its cheerleaders—such as Louie Giglio, Robert Morris, Joel and Jonathan Stockstill, Chris Hodges, Mark Batterson, Samuel Rodriguez, Priscilla Shirer (daughter of Bible teacher Tony Evans) and Francis Chan—it is driven by thousands of faceless leaders who are contending for a return to passionate faith.

These leaders, from both charismatic and non-charismatic backgrounds, are reclaiming integrity, humility and purity while rejecting the egotism and greedy excess of the past season. They are committed to solid Bible teaching, relational discipleship and a nonreligious church experience that is appealing to the next generation. And they are planting churches—both traditional ones in buildings, as well as house churches—at an aggressive clip.

I’m worn and weary from the stress of the last 10 years, but I have never been more excited about stepping into a new season of opportunity. We have no reason to fear the future. Whatever challenges loom ahead, the same God who carried us through this past decade will give us success in the next one.

J. Lee Grady is editor of Charisma. You can find him on Twitter at leegrady. He invites you to post on our forum what you believe were the highlights of the past decade.