Jesus said, “Seek, and you will find” (Matt. 7:7, MEV), and this is especially true of excuses. If you are looking for an excuse, you can always find one.

Some people are too young. Some are too old. Some are not smart enough. Some are not experienced enough. Some are not privileged enough. Some don’t have enough money. Some don’t have the right abilities. For some it’s not time yet; for others it’s too late. Excuses are a penny a pound, plentiful and cheap—and God does not buy them!

We become extremely creative when we want to make an excuse. Our excuses can often sound very noble and even spiritual at times. We use excuses to fool others, but they are especially effective at helping us to fool ourselves. We use them as a sedative to soothe our conscience and to make us feel better about our own disobedience and laziness.

My friend, God has a wonderful plan for your life, and He invites you to partake of it, but excuses are a dangerous enemy that can keep you from possessing what God has for you. I have seen how excuses have kept so many wonderful people from realizing their God-given potential. This is a great tragedy because life is so short, and time wasted can never be recovered.

This book has been written to help you discover God’s will for your life, but the discovery of God’s will for your life is never going to be enough in and of itself. Knowing God’s will and fulfilling it are two entirely different things! The reality is that many people already know what God has called them to do. Even if they don’t realize it or won’t admit it, God has already revealed His will to them in one way or another. But they never achieve all that God has given to them to accomplish. And they never enter into the fullness of the blessings God has prepared for them because they comfort themselves in disobedience and laziness through excuses.

Although there are far too many excuses to mention, I would like to address a few in the upcoming studies that are especially common. As you read through the list of excuses, I would like to challenge you to allow this to be a sort of diagnostic test. Examine your own heart to see if you are allowing these excuses or others like them, to keep you from walking in the fullness of what God has for your life.

Note: This Bible study was taken from Chapter 14 of Daniel Kolenda’s book, Live Before You Die. 

Daniel Kolenda is a missionary evangelist who has led more than 10 million people to Christ face to face through massive, open-air evangelistic campaigns in some of the most dangerous, difficult and remote locations on earth. He is president and CEO of Christ for All Nations and hosts an internationally syndicated television program.

A hacking attack on Google’s Gmail service in 2011 prompted Hillary Clinton and her aides to worry about the security of private email accounts widely used by government officials who found their “antiquated” government-issued laptops inefficient.

Clinton’s use of a private email account connected to a server in her New York home while she led the State Department now hangs over her campaign to become the Democratic nominee for the November 2016 presidential election.

The seemingly prophetic concern is revealed in the latest batch of Clinton’s emails released by the State Department, the fifth release in a monthly series set to last until January 2016 under a schedule ordered by a federal judge.

After Google Inc. revealed in June 2011 that suspected Chinese hackers tried to steal the passwords of hundreds of Gmail accounts held by senior U.S. government officials, Clinton and three top aides discussed the issue.

“NO ONE uses a State-issued laptop and even high officials routinely end up using their home email accounts to be able to get their work done quickly and effectively,” Anne-Marie Slaughter, who had recently left her job as director of policy planning at the State Department, wrote in an email to Clinton.

Slaughter suggested that someone outside of government write an op-ed about the State Department’s “antiquated” technology, blaming it on budget cuts.

Clinton replied saying she thought the idea made “good sense” and asked how the department should follow up with Slaughter’s idea.

Her chief of staff, Cheryl Mills, was less sure, writing that both she and policy aide Jake Sullivan had concerns.

Mills, who said hackers had attempted to infiltrate her email, wrote, “I am not sure we want to telegraph how much folks do or don’t do off state mail (because) it may encourage others who are out there,” Mills wrote.

The Republican National Committee, which has accused Clinton of jeopardizing sensitive government information and national security, picked up on the thread, saying it undercut Clinton’s assertion that her server was more secure than government email.

Malware

Two months after that email exchange, Clinton received what appears to be ordinary spam. The emails purported to be a notice of a speeding violation from the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles.

The messages appeared to contain attachments that were used in a large-scale spam campaign that August 2011 news reports said spread malware that could give attackers control of infected systems.

It is unclear whether she opened the attachments, or even if they were part of that campaign. Spokesmen for Clinton, who has not driven herself in decades because of her Secret Service protection, did not respond to questions about the emails.

Brian Fallon, a Clinton spokesman, reacted with sarcasm on Twitter. “Breaking news: Clinton received spam,” he wrote.

“Just by receiving a spam email, it doesn’t mean you are infected,” said Dan Guido, a former Federal Reserve cyber expert. Yet he said it would be impossible to determine what happened unless security professionals examined the original emails.

Clinton has apologized for her email arrangement, saying it was allowed but a bad idea.

Opinion polls show voters have lingering questions about her use of the private server, and her lead over top rival Bernie Sanders, a U.S. senator from Vermont, has dwindled amid the controversy.

More Classified Emails

Among the 3,800 emails released on Wednesday were 215 that contain classified information that was redacted to protect national security, according to State Department spokesman John Kirby.

Three of them are now marked “secret,” the second-highest level of classification, bringing the total number of classified emails in all the batches released so far to 403.

The government forbids transmitting classified information outside secure, government-controlled channels.

The State Department and other government agencies are currently arguing over how much of the information, if any at all, was classified at the time it was sent.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is examining the server to see whether government information was mishandled.

As with previous batches, the latest emails include amusing glimpses into the quotidian business of an office job.

Clinton asked an aide how to turn her phone’s ringer on, how to find local NPR radio stations and at one point complained about “fighting” with a White House telephone operator while trying to place a call.

Clinton also struggled with email addresses. In July 2011, after an aide politely pointed out that Clinton was writing to the aide’s Gmail address instead her state.gov account, Clinton puzzled over the slip.

“I just checked and I do have your state (email address) but not your Gmail – so how did that happen,” she wrote. “Must be the Chinese!” {eoa}

© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved.

The owners of a Portland-area bakery who refused on religious grounds to bake a wedding cake for a lesbian couple are fighting a court order to pay the pair $135,000 in damages, Oregon officials said on Wednesday. 

When Laurel and Rachel Bowman-Cryer were planning their nuptials in 2013, Aaron and Melissa Klein, the owners of the Sweet Cakes by Melissa bakery, refused to bake the cake, citing their religious beliefs. 

Oregon’s Bureau of Labor and Industries found the owners had violated anti-discrimination laws because their shop is not a registered religious institution, and ordered them to pay the couple $135,000 in damages. 

The Kleins appealed the ruling and have refused to pay, citing financial hardships, Bureau spokesman Charlie Burr said, adding that the agency is exploring options for collecting the money. 

The agency has given the Kleins the option of obtaining a bond or a line of credit, and has also agreed to hold funds in escrow until the appeals are settled, Burr said. 

Burr also said they have raised nearly $500,000 through a donation campaign. 

“They are entitled to a full and fair review of the case, but do not have the right to disregard a legally binding order,” Burr said. 

An attorney representing the Kleins, Herb Grey, said the couple has raised far less than $500,000, but declined to give an exact number. He also said they should not be obligated to pay the damages because the case is not settled. 

“They continue to stand on their well-established constitutional rights to live and work based on their values and beliefs,” Grey said. “Religion is a protected class just like sexual orientation is.” 

Grey said he expects the appeal to be heard in the spring. 

The gay couple married in 2014 after a federal judge struck down the state’s same-sex marriage ban. 

The bakery case is one of many disputes nation-wide since the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in June to legalize same-sex marriage in all 50 states. 

The Kleins were featured guests at the conservative Value Voters Summit in Washington, D.C., last week alongside Kim Davis, a Kentucky clerk who was jailed after her refusal to issue the licenses and who met with Pope Francis during his U.S. visit. {eoa}

© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved.

A lot of people out there expected something to happen in September that did not ultimately happen. There were all kinds of wild theories floating around, and many of them had no basis in reality whatsoever. But without a doubt, some very important things did happen in September.

As I warned about ahead of time, we are witnessing the most significant global financial meltdown since the end of 2008. All of the largest stock markets in the world are crashing simultaneously, and so far the amount of wealth that has been wiped out worldwide is in excess of $5 trillion.

In addition to stocks, junk bonds are also crashing, and Bank of America says that it is a “slow-moving train wreck that seems to be accelerating.”

Thanks to the commodity price crash, many of the largest commodity traders on the planet are now imploding. I wrote about the death spiral that has gripped Glencore yesterday. On Tuesday, the stock price of the largest commodity trader in Asia, the Noble Group, plummeted like a rock and commodity trading giant Trafigura appears to be in worse shape than either Glencore or the Noble Group.

The total collapse of any of them could easily be a bigger event than the implosion of Lehman Brothers in 2008. So I honestly do not understand the “nothing is happening” crowd. It takes ignorance on an almost unbelievable level to try to claim that “nothing is happening” in the financial world right now.

Within the last 60 days, we have seen some things happen that we have never seen before.

For example, did you know that we witnessed the greatest intraday stock market crash in U.S. history on Aug. 24?

During that day, the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged from a high of 16,459.75 to a low of 15,370.33 before rebounding substantially. That intraday point swing of 1,089 points was the largest in all of U.S. history.

Overall, the Dow was down 588.40 points that day. When you combine that decline with the 530.94 point plunge from the previous Friday, you get a total drop of 1119.34 points over two consecutive trading days. Never before in history had the Dow fallen by more than 500 points on two trading days in a row.

If that entire decline had fallen within one trading day, it would have been the largest stock market crash in U.S. history by a very wide margin, and everyone would be running around saying that author Jonathan Cahn was right again.

But somehow, because this massive decline fell over two consecutive trading days, he is wrong?

Are you kidding me?

Come on people—let’s use some common sense here. We are already witnessing the greatest global stock market decline in seven years, and after a brief lull things are starting to accelerate once again. Last night, stocks in Hong Kong were down 629 points and stocks in Japan were down 714 points. In the U.S., the NASDAQ has had a string of down days recently, and the “death cross” that has just formed has many investors extremely concerned:

The NASDAQ composite spooked investors on Monday after forming a death cross, a trading pattern that shows a decline in short-term momentum and is often a precursor to future losses.

A death cross occurs when the short-term moving average of a security or an index pierces below the long-term trend, in this case the 50-day moving average breaking through the 200-day moving average.

In the past month, similar chart patterns formed in the S&P 500, Dow and small-cap Russell 2000, but the NASDAQ avoided a death cross formation until Monday.

What we witnessed in September was not “the end” of anything.

Instead, it is just the beginning.

And if you listen carefully, some of the biggest names on Wall Street are issuing some very ominous warnings about what is coming. For instance, just consider what Carl Icahn is saying:

Danger ahead—that’s the warning from Carl Icahn in a video coming Tuesday.

The activist says low rates caused bubbles in art, real estate and high-yield bonds—with potentially dramatic consequences.

“It’s like giving somebody medicine and this medicine is being given and given and given and we don’t know what’s going to happen—you don’t know how bad it’s going to be. We do know when we did it a few years ago it caused a catastrophe, it caused ’08. Where do you draw the line?”

Even people like Jim Cramer are starting to freak out. He recently told his audience that “we have a first-class bear market going”:

“Jim Cramer, the ex-hedge fund manager and host of CNBC’s show ‘Mad Money,’ has been vocal recently on air, saying repeatedly that he doesn’t like the market now, and last week said, ‘We have a first-class bear market going.” Similarly, Gary Kaltbaum, president of Kaltbaum Capital Management, has been sending out notes to clients and this newspaper for weeks, saying the poor price action of the stock market and many hard-hit sectors, such as energy and the recently clobbered biotech sector, has all the earmarks of a bear market. Over the weekend, Kaltbaum said: ‘We remain in a worldwide bear market for stocks.'”

As I have warned repeatedly, there will continue to be ups and downs. The stock market is not going to fall every day. In fact, on some days stocks will absolutely soar.

But without a doubt, we have entered the period of time that I have warned about for so long. The global financial system is now beginning to unravel, and any piece of major bad news will likely accelerate things.

For instance, the total collapse of Deutsche Bank, Petrobras, Glencore, the Noble Group, Trafigura or any of a number of other major financial institutions that I am currently watching could create mass panic on the global financial stage.

In addition, an unexpected natural disaster that hits a financially important major city or a massive terror attack in the Western world are other examples of things that could accelerate this process.

Our world is becoming increasingly unstable, and we all need to learn to expect the unexpected.

The period of relative peace and security that we all have been enjoying for so long is ending, and now chaos is going to reign for a time.

So get prepared while you still can, because there is very little time remaining to do so.

Ending weeks of infighting, the U.S. Congress on Wednesday voted to avert a government shutdown just hours before a midnight deadline, passing a stop-gap measure to extend funding for federal agencies until Dec. 11. 

The House of Representatives relied heavily on Democrats to secure passage in a 277-151 vote. A large majority of Republicans voted against the measure, which did not meet conservatives’ demands to cut off money to women’s healthcare provider Planned Parenthood amid an abortion controversy. 

The House also passed a companion bill aimed at restoring the Planned Parenthood defunding provision, but the Senate is not expected to act on it, effectively killing it. 

President Barack Obama signed the spending extension into law later on Wednesday, the White House said in a statement. 

Obama welcomed the news with a tinge of sarcasm in remarks to a group of progressive state legislators in Washington. 

“The good news is that it looks like the Republicans will just barely avoid shutting down the government for the second time in two years. That’s a somewhat low bar but we should celebrate where we can,” Obama said. 

“The bad news is that it looks like Republicans will just barely avoid shutting down the government again for the second time in two years,” he added. 

Earlier in the day, by a vote of 78-20, the Senate approved the legislation that was needed to keep the government running at current levels with the start of the new fiscal year on Thursday. 

The controversy over Planned Parenthood funding threatened a repeat of a 17-day shutdown in October 2013 that was prompted by Republican demands to deny federal funding for Obama’s healthcare law, the Affordable Care Act. 

House conservatives, cheered on by some Senate colleagues, had insisted that Planned Parenthood be punished for allegedly improperly selling fetal tissue harvested from abortions. The organization has denied the allegations. 

The debate shifted dramatically last week when House Speaker John Boehner announced his resignation and said he would put the Senate’s “clean” funding bill to a vote. 

The funding extension aims to give congressional negotiators and Obama about 10 weeks to work out a longer-term budget deal and ease automatic spending constraints on military and domestic spending. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said he would like to reach a deal with Democrats that sets funding levels for two fiscal years, through Sept. 30, 2017. {eoa}

© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved.

Jill Savage and I thoroughly enjoyed writing No More Perfect Kids to help you. There’s a lot of good, practical help in it for when your children question who they are and get frustrated.

As the school year is off and running, I thought this excerpt from the book may be timely for you. I hope so! You can get more if you buy the book. Hint! Hint!

10 Ways to Encourage Your Child
An excerpt from No More Perfect Kids by Jill Savage and Dr. Kathy Koch

Parenting is hard work and sometimes it seems our kids do more wrong than right. Add in household responsibilities such as laundry and meals, spilled milk at the breakfast table, a child who comes in from playing outside and is covered in dirt and sibling rivalry in which the kids pick at each other all night, and sometimes life just isn’t easy. Fatigue is normal, and frustration is too. Learning not to act unkindly in our frustration is a journey requiring grace for ourselves and our kids.

Even in the midst of real life, it’s important to say far more encouraging words to our kids than correcting words. When we encourage kids, we give them courage. It’s empowering, freeing and strengthening. When encouragement is the norm, children will learn they can take risks, try new things, ask for help and make mistakes without the fear of losing the acceptance, love and support of their parents.

It’s not easy to give encouragement, especially on the hard days. There are, however, steps we can take to increase encouragement in our home.

Here are 10 Encouragement Enhancers you can use in your family:

1. Don’t expect perfection. When we expect perfection, we notice every little thing that’s wrong, which creates an environment of discouragement.
2. Encourage childlike behavior. There’s a difference between childish behavior and age-appropriate childlike behavior. Discourage the first and encourage the second.
3. Value what your kids learn. We need to pay at least as much attention to what’s being learned as we do to grades being earned and performances at games and concerts. This is one way we communicate that our kids are more than what they do and how they do.
4. Resist the urge to judge all performances. One way to emphasize learning rather than performance is not always to ask about their scores or grades.
5. Ask them how they feel. When talking about one of their athletic competitions, concerts or tests, sometimes ask first how satisfied they were with the outcome. Two-way conversations about grades, concerts and competitions will be more profitable than one-way judgments.
6. Notice their strengths. Point out their character, attitude and action strengths to help them when they work to make progress in weak areas.
7. Don’t worry about their challenges. Understand some areas will remain challenges for our kids no matter how hard they try. Trying to get kids to change what they can’t improve is a sure way to discourage them.
8. Celebrate what’s real. When one child deserves to be celebrated for something significant (for example, no C’s on a report card for the first time in a year, a soccer championship, art being displayed in the county library), don’t create fake celebrations for your other kids in order to be “fair.” Use these opportunities to teach children to genuinely celebrate their siblings.
9. Introduce them to overcomers. Discuss relatives and local people your kids know who have overcome great odds. Read biographies and autobiographies of people who have been highly successful even though they also struggled. We can often learn our greatest lessons from our greatest challenges.
10. Have fun together. Play with your kids. Relationships are deepened while building forts and having tea parties with your little ones and going shopping and watching ball games with your older ones. The fun, relaxed moments you share make tough times easier to walk through and go a long way to creating an encouraging family culture.

Be patient with yourself as you work to increase the encouraging environment in your family. If you choose too many things to change, you and your kids will be overwhelmed, and you will make little progress. Don’t look back with shame or guilt either. Today is a perfect day to look forward with hope, choose one Encouragement Enhancer to start with and walk in a positive direction! {eoa}

Dr. Kathy Koch is the author of Screens & Teens: Connecting With Our Kids in a Wireless World.

I am concerned for my country. I know that you share my concern. Having spent half of my adult life in England, from a distance I have watched my beloved America decline.

I think Anne Graham Lotz has got it right, that God has taken His hand off America. It breaks my heart. In my old age (I am now 80) I am spending half of the year in America, the other half in London.

England has given me my ministry, my identity and some of my all-time best friends. I cannot adequately express the sense of gratitude I feel toward my Mother Country. That said, I have been welcomed home by so many and I am thankful for the open doors here. That I would be invited to write this open letter to you is an evidence of this.

But the ache I feel as I watch America at the moment brings me to tears.

I’m sorry, but much of the blame lies with the church, speaking generally.

Church attendance is in decline, we are losing our youth, and the world does not respect us. There is no fear of God in the land and virtually no fear of God in the church. But as Bobby Conner has said recently, “The fear of God is coming back to the church.” What is especially encouraging for me is meeting an ever-increasing number of church leaders, many of them young, who have a genuine thirst for God. This speaks well for tomorrow’s generation.

Is there hope? Yes. But the answer is not to be found in politics, government or presidential elections. It is to all the church, especially to tomorrow’s generation, that I share some things on my heart. We are the salt of the earth, the light of the world. We are the key. I would go to the stake for what I write below.

First is the priority of the gospel. My greatest hope for American Christianity is that the gospel will never be taken for granted. I am sure that many church leaders and many evangelists have the same concern.

The gospel is always under siege, particularly at a theological level. The enemy will always seek to rob the gospel of both its stigma and power. I applaud those who affirm Paul’s teaching of the blood of Christ propitiating the justice of God. Our calling is not to make the gospel palatable but to tell it as it is and this includes the unpalatable truth about God’s wrath and the judgment to come.

We all want people to become Christians. But why? To make them nicer people to live with? To cause them to be materially better off? Or to live longer? Paul said that if “in this life only” we have hope in Christ we are to be pitied (1 Cor. 15:19). Why should we long for people to become Christians? It is because of the wrath of God. The earliest message of the New Testament was to “flee” from the wrath to come (Matt. 3:7).

The Bible in a nutshell is this: God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that we should “not perish”—a reference to eternal punishment—but have eternal life (John 3:16).

I love to visit the Holy Land to be where Jesus did miraculous things. I also love to visit places where the Holy Spirit did extraordinary things.

At least four times I have stood and meditated on a vacant lot in Enfield, Connecticut, where on July 8, 1741, Jonathan Edwards preached his historic sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” So great was God’s power that people literally held on to pews in the church and to tree trunks outside to keep from slipping into hell. News of this sermon spread all over New England in days and in England in weeks.

Edwards preached the same sermon two weeks later with no effect at all. God only did it once, to give us a taste of how terrible His wrath is. The intensity of the Cane Ridge Revival (1801) lasted only two days, but it gave America her Bible Belt.

Second, affirming the God of the Old Testament. I am always amazed and reassured that Jesus never apologized for the God of the Old Testament—His Father! This includes being unashamed of the Genesis account of creation, especially: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” The modern redefinition of marriage reflects a disdain for God’s plan in making us male and female. I thank God for those who have resisted this trend, and hold to a biblical definition of traditional marriage.  

References to the inspiration of Scripture in the New Testament includes the 39 books of the Old Testament. If we affirm the New Testament it means we affirm the Old Testament as well. I accept there are things in the Old Testament hard to swallow. Yes. But this is true with the New Testament too. Part of bearing the stigma for Christ is the willingness to look like fools in the eyes the world.

Third, that the Word and the Spirit will come together as it did in the book of Acts. There is a growing conviction among evangelicals and charismatics that a remarriage between the Word and the Spirit is God’s way. You may be surprised to learn that those truly open to the person and work of the Holy Spirit in the operation of spiritual gifts are now in the majority among evangelicals in the U.K.

Sadly, this is not the case in the United States; many of us are seen as the lunatic fringe of Christianity. Not to worry; embrace the stigma! But that is changing. The hypothesis of “cessationism” is dying fast. Many evangelical leaders are increasingly seeing the urgent need for the “immediate and direct” witness of the Holy Spirit—to use Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones’s phrase—on their ministries.

To clarify: By Word, I mean the centrality of gospel. By Spirit, I mean signs, wonders and miracles. I believe that the simultaneous combination of the Word and Spirit will mean a spontaneous combustion of power and authority for the church and a wake-up call to the nation. Never forget that John Newton, famous for his hymn “Amazing Grace,” was the impetus behind William Wilberforce, who brought incalculable social change to the world.

Part of the immediate impact of the Cane Ridge Revival brought a measure of social change, including a loathing of slavery. While we wait for a nation-changing awakening, we may thank God for encouraging signs now.

Fourth is that our very lives make the world want what we have. Arthur Blessitt was given an open door in Amman when an Arab sheik noticed him across a restaurant and said, “I want what you’ve got.” There was something about Arthur’s countenance that gripped this Arab. Arthur afterward led him to Christ. We will not win people over by theological argument alone, but by a different Spirit in us than is in the world.

What will win the world will not come about by the keenest intellect humiliating an opponent, but by the most transparently Christlike person melting hearts. When Paul determined to know nothing among the Corinthians but Jesus Christ and Him “crucified,” it was his commitment both to the objective gospel of the cross but also subjectively to the manner of life he proposed to live before those who never heard the gospel.

My old mentor Rolfe Barnard preached a sermon called “The Man Who Was Known in Hell.”

Based upon the incident in Acts when a demon said “Jesus I know, and I know about Paul, but who are you?” (Acts 19:15), Rolfe pointed out that it was Jesus and Paul—and not the man trying to cast out demons—who had a reputation in hell. That sermon influenced me deeply when I was young, helping me to aspire to be a threat to the devil. If I had to choose, I’d rather be known in hell than be admired in the world.

The famed Robert Murray M’Cheyne saw a true touch of revival in Scotland. Six months after he died in 1843, a young minister traveled to St. Peter’s Church in Dundee to inquire what M’Cheyne’s secret was.

An old elder took the young preacher to M’Cheyne’s desk, saying to him: “Put your elbows on the desk and place your forehead in your hands, and let the tears flow.” The elder then took the young man to M’Cheyne’s pulpit, telling him: “Now put your elbows on the pulpit and place your forehead in your hands, and let the tears flow.” M’Cheyne had a passion for the lost.

May God grant us a fresh passion for the unsaved who in are in danger of the wrath to come.

After M’Cheyne died, a letter addressed to him was found in his coat pocket. It was written by a man who heard M’Cheyne preach on the previous Sunday. In it, he wrote that he came to the church unconverted but the sight of M’Cheyne’s face—not the sermon itself—so gripped this man that he could not help himself—and was instantly saved.

We need to make a greater impact on our generation and on generations to come, should Jesus tarry.

“T’was not the truth you taught, to you so clear, to me so dim;

But when you came to me you brought a sense of Him.

Yes, from your eyes He beckoned me, from your heart His love was shed;

When I lost sight of you and saw the Christ instead.” —Anonymous

Earlier this month, we reported how Paula White set up an invitation-only meeting between Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and evangelical pastors.

That meeting happened this week—and plenty of Pentecostals were there to lay hands on the billionaire, make declarations over his life and pray.

Beyond Paula White, also present were Kenneth and Gloria Copeland, Jentezen Franklin, David Jeremiah, Jan Crouch, Steve Munsey, Rabbi Kirt Schneider, Bishop George Bloomer, Bishop Darrell Scott and Clarence McClendon.

In this video, Kenneth Copeland is praying over Trump.

“No man can be successful as president of the United States without Your wisdom. And so we ask You today to give this man Your wisdom, boldly. Make sure and certain that he hears. Manifest Yourself to him,” Copeland prayed. “And we thank You and praise You for a bold man, a strong man and an obedient man.”

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As we have reported, Trump’s campaign is pulling out all the stops to woo Christian voters. He recently told a rally his favorite book is the Bible, but later refused to share his favorite verse.

“During the meeting, he talked about his Christian faith,” David Brody, CBN News chief political correspondent, wrote. “At one point he admitted that he may not have read the Bible as much as the pastors in the room. As the conversation continued, a few of the ministers implored Trump to tone down some of his harsh rhetoric.

“As for additional subject matter, Trump told the religious leaders and pastors that he will be a strong supporter of Israel and that defeating ISIS would be a strong part of his agenda,” Brody continued. “He also discussed trade, balancing the budget, eliminating the deficit and tax reform.”

Will Pentecostals back Trump? Should we?

“Consistency is overrated.” I love that statement!

“That is the most freeing statement I’ve heard in a long time.” That’s what one mom said when we freed her from the guilt she experienced because she couldn’t always be consistent. She continued, “It makes so much sense now. Thank you.” Here’s what we told her.

If you’re doing simple behavior modification, then consistency is essential. Giving the reward or punishment every time you see the behavior will reinforce change. But if you’re using a heart-based approach, you have more effective tools you can use to make lasting change.

Behavior modification as a science began in the early 1900s when Pavlov made some exciting discoveries as he worked with dogs. If he consistently rang a bell just before he fed the dogs, then he could get the dogs to salivate by simply ringing the bell. This discovery of how to motivate a dog was picked up by Watson in the 1920s and he began to apply behavior modification to people. In fact, it wasn’t long before behavior modification became a primary way to help people stop smoking, lose weight and deal with a host of other behavioral issues.

Kids Are Not Animals

People, however, are different from animals because they have hearts and that affects the learning process. The heart contains things like emotions, desires, convictions and passion. In short, the heart is a wrestling place where decisions are made. A child’s tendencies come from the heart. When a child lies to get out of trouble, that’s a heart issue. If a brother reacts with anger each time his sister is annoying, that’s a heart issue. Simply focusing on behavior may provide some quick change, but lasting change takes place in the heart.

Parents who simply use behavior modification often end up with kids who look good on the outside while having significant problems on the inside. Consistency can teach kids to appear good, clean and nice, but other parenting skills must be added to the picture in order to help children change their hearts.

Here’s Rhonda’s Story

Rhonda finds this principle particularly helpful. “I have four kids and a household to run. Invariably I’d have to sacrifice consistency in an area with one or more of my kids to accomplish my other tasks. When I realized that there’s more to parenting than just being consistent, it freed me up to work on bigger goals with my kids. Now I realize that there’s much more to parenting and I feel empowered with other tools as well. I’m continually asking question about my children’s hearts and I’m learning a lot about how to mold and influence them to go in the right direction. I’m seeing more change in my kids with this new approach.”

Please don’t misunderstand us. Consistency is important, especially when kids are young. But if you think more broadly about parenting and embrace creativity into your training, then you’ll be more effective at molding the hearts of your kids at any age. Your primary task as parent is to teach your kids, and a little work in the creativity department can make all the difference.

Deuteronomy 11:18-20 not only tells parents to train their kids, but it tells them how to do it. Notice the opportunities God designed for creativity: “Therefore you must fix these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and bind them as a sign on your hand, so that they may be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall teach them to your children, speaking of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”

If you take that verse apart, you’ll start thinking about your own home and your own kids and creative ways to teach them about life.

Even in Old Testament times God knew that kids learn best through life experiences. Thinking beyond behavior, to the hearts of your kids will give you new insights and freedom.

This parenting tip comes from the book, The Christian Parenting Handbook, 50 Heart-Based Strategies for all the Stages of Your Child’s Life by Dr. Scott Turansky and Joanne Miller, RN, BSN. These 50 strategies help you add creativity to your parenting and see beyond the behavior problems.

This week I preached at a pastors’ conference in Brookings, South Dakota. Before I arrived I assumed the sponsoring church, Holy Life Tabernacle, would be a mostly white congregation, since South Dakota is 82 percent white. But, when I walked into the Sunday service, I was greeted by Ghanaians, Rwandans, Nigerians and Congolese, most of them students or professionals who had recently moved to this small community north of Sioux Falls.

There were so many internationals in the service that I decided to ask everyone who had been born in another country to stand. There were more than 75 foreigners attending the church that day—about one-third of the congregation. Even pastor David Kaufman and his wife, Jeanne, who have been sharing Christ on the local university campus for years, were surprised to see how many foreigners have made Holy Life their home church.

That Sunday I made sure these internationals felt appreciated. “I want to say to each of you: Welcome to the United States!” I told them. “We are glad you are here!” They all smiled and clapped—and the Ghanaians cheered when I noted that they had the largest group.

I will be honest: The reason I so eagerly welcomed these immigrants is that I’m absolutely ashamed of the way many Americans act toward our foreign friends. And the current presidential campaign is not helping.

Case in point: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump—who seems to thrive on being intentionally offensive—insulted all Mexicans this past summer when he claimed that immigrants entering the United States from Mexico are a bad influence on our country. He said: “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.”

To make his jabs even more hurtful, Trump told audiences that if he becomes president he will deport the entire undocumented population and end the practice of giving citizenship to children born to foreigners on U.S. soil. Trump said in July: “I will build a great wall on our southern border, and I will make Mexico pay for that wall.”

I’ve been a Republican since I began voting at age 18. But Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric is enough to make me forfeit my association with the GOP. It’s a shame that a candidate who claims to care about the future of the United States would be so hateful toward people who came to this country looking for the American dream. It’s even worse that Trump’s attitude is shared by some Christians who should know better.

There are three things we should remember about immigrants:

1. Immigrants are a blessing to our nation. Trump either slept through history class or he has a very short memory. America was shaped by immigrants—those who came from Ireland, Italy, Poland and Norway in the 1800s; the Hmong and Vietnamese refugees of the 1970s; and the Latinos, Africans and Indians coming here today. Immigrants start small businesses and stimulate the economy. Contrary to what Mr. Trump believes, immigrants do not breed crime; studies show that they are actually less likely to be jailed for a crime than U.S.-born citizens.

2. The church is called to welcome and care for foreigners. The Bible commands us: “The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself” (Lev. 19:34a). Our immigration policies should be tempered by kindness and a desire to share our blessings, not hoard them from the poor or less fortunate. In August a Donald Trump supporter told Hispanic reporter Jorge Ramos—who is a U.S. citizen—to “get out of my country.” He might as well have waved a swastika flag. The incident indicated that some of Trump’s fans are promoting a sick, racist nationalism that could fuel anti-immigrant violence. Christians should be modeling the opposite.

3. God has a prophetic purpose for immigrants. Mr. Trump believes he can just build a wall to keep Mexicans out of our country. But what if God wants to bring Mexicans to the United States for His purpose? What if He wants to create a haven of protection in our country for refugees from Syria? The apostle Paul preached that it is the sovereign God who created the nations and “appointed fixed times and the boundaries of their habitation” (Acts 17:26). We could actually find ourselves fighting God if we resist showing kindness to the immigrants God wants us to protect.

Many Americans today fear that immigrants are coming here to spread crime or terrorism. Of course we have to be vigilant to prevent Islamic extremists or violent gangs from entering this country. And of course we can’t just let anyone set up camp within our borders without enforcing the law. But let’s not forget that some of the worst terrorism on U.S. soil was carried out by crazed U.S. citizens, including white supremacist Dylann Roof who shot nine African-American Christians in a South Carolina church last June. Our biggest threat of violence is not from outsiders.

The Christian community should be standing in solidarity with the huddled masses of immigrants who come to our country seeking a better life. Shame on Donald Trump and any other political candidate who wants to slam the door on foreigners.

J. Lee Grady is the former editor of Charisma and the director of The Mordecai Project. He is the author of 10 Lies the Church Tells Women and other books. You can follow him on Twitter at leegrady. Check out his ministry at themordecaiproject.org.