Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen is quite convinced that the United States will not experience another financial crisis for a very long time to come. In fact, she is publicly saying that she does not believe that another one will happen “in our lifetimes.” But there are other central bankers who see things very differently. In fact, a new report just released by the Bank for International Settlements warns a new financial crisis could soon strike “with a vengeance.” So who is right?

It would be nice if it turned out that Yellen was right. Nobody should want to see a repeat of what happened in 2008, and Yellen seems extremely confident that she will never see another crisis of that magnitude…

“Would I say there will never, ever be another financial crisis? You know, probably that would be going too far but I do think we’re much safer and I hope that it will not be in our lifetimes and I don’t believe it will be,” Yellen said at an event in London.

Even though the U.S. national debt has roughly doubled since the start of the last financial crisis, and even though corporate debt has roughly doubled since then as well, and even though U.S. consumers are more than $12 trillion in debt, and even though the top 25 U.S. banks have $222 trillion of exposure to derivatives, Yellen believes that our financial system “is much safer and much sounder” than it was in 2008:

“I think the system is much safer and much sounder,” she said. “We are doing a lot more to try to look for financial stability risks that may not be immediately apparent but to look in corners of the financial system that are not subject to regulation, outside those areas in order to try to detect threats to financial stability that may be emerging.”

I have a feeling that these words may come back to haunt her, and the fact that she has more power over the performance of the U.S. economy than anyone else does is more than just a little bit frightening.

The truth is that signs of a major new economic downturn are emerging all around us, and many are warning that the next great financial crisis is just around the corner. For example, just consider what a new report from the Bank for International Settlements is saying. The Bank for International Settlements is widely regarded as “the central bank of central banks”, and this new report is warning that we could be heading for “a financial boom gone wrong”:

A new financial crisis is brewing in the emerging economies and it could hit “with a vengeance,” an influential group of central bankers has warned.

Emerging markets such as China are showing the same signs that their economies are overheating as the U.S. and the U.K. demonstrated before the financial crisis of 2007-08, according to the annual report of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).

Claudio Borio, the head of the BIS monetary and economic department, said a new recession could come “with a vengeance” and “the end may come to resemble more closely a financial boom gone wrong.”

And of course, many of the most trusted analysts in the financial world agree with the BIS. In fact, Dr. Doom Marc Faber is predicting that stocks could soon decline “by 40 percent or more”:

If the man often hailed as the original “Dr. Doom” is right, the stock market could see another “lurch” higher—at which point investors may want to cash out quickly and run for cover.

Marc Faber, the editor of “The Gloom, Boom & Doom Report’ and a perennial bear, isn’t backing down from his latest dire prediction that would send stocks plummeting by 40 percent or more.

A drop of that size could take the S&P 500 Index down from Friday’s closing price of 2,438 to 1,463.

In the end, we shall see who is right and who is wrong.

And let us certainly hope that another crisis like the one we saw in 2008 does not happen anytime soon, because tens of millions of Americans are completely unprepared for one.

According to a brand-new survey that was just released, almost half the country currently spends as much or more money than they make each month:

Nearly half of Americans say their expenses are equal to or greater than their income, according to a new study from the Center for Financial Services Innovation. And for those 18 to 25 the percentage is over half, up to 54 percent.

“Half of America has no financial cushion,” says Jennifer Tescher, president and CEO of CFSI, which released the study. “They are living really close to the edge.”

And another recent survey discovered that 69 percent of all Americans do not have an adequate emergency fund.

With so many of us living on the edge, our society is extremely vulnerable to a major financial shock. And when one finally does happen, a lot of people are going to get knocked out of the ranks of the middle class very rapidly.

Even though things seem relatively stable for the moment, poverty is on the rise all over the country. For example, according to the Daily Mail, the number of homeless people in Los Angeles has risen by 23 percent over the last year…

According to a new count released in May, the number of homeless people in the Los Angeles area jumped by 23 percent in the last year to reach nearly 58,000. Of those, some 5,000 are veterans, the highest number of homeless veterans of any city in the country and a near 60 percent increase over the previous year.

And we are seeing similar things in cities all over the nation.

The United States is in the midst of a long-term economic decline that goes back for decades. Our economic infrastructure has been gutted, our middle class is now a minority of the population and we have piled up the biggest mountain of debt in the history of the world in a desperate attempt to maintain a standard of living that we have not earned.

Hopefully Janet Yellen is right, and hopefully the next major financial crisis will be put off for as long as possible.

But whether the next financial crisis comes quickly or not, the truth is that the U.S. economy is going to continue to decline if we continue to make the same kinds of incredibly poor decisions we have been making for a very long time. {eoa}

It was the act of only one man who drove his vehicle into a Ten Commandments monument in Arkansas, but it reflected the sentiments of a growing number of Americans: “We do not want the Ten Commandments in our midst, nor do we want the God of the Ten Commandments in our midst.” In that sense, the destructive act of this individual reflected the attitude of tens of millions of Americans. This is not simply a decreased interest in the Bible and the God of the Bible. This is outright rebellion.

Enough with God’s laws and standards. Enough with His moral principles. Enough with His prohibitions of idolatry and adultery and murder.

We will do what we want to do, when we want to do it, and no law—or God—will tell us otherwise.

The America we want must have no connection to its Judeo-Christian roots, no connection to the moral values of many of its founders, no connection to the Scriptures which so influenced their thinking.

We will worship created things more than the Creator, and we will be full of covetousness and greed. We want our idolatry.

We will kill our babies in the womb if we so choose, and anyone who defies our wishes will be trampled underfoot with derision and scorn. We want our murder.

Yes, we will do what we want to do when we want to do it. We declare ourselves free.

Ironically, the man in question, Michael Tate Reed, who livestreamed on Facebook as he drove his vehicle onto the Arkansas statehouse lawn, allegedly yelled “Freedom!” as he crashed into the Ten Commandments monument less than 24 hours after it was erected. He was previously charged with a similar attack on a Ten Commandments monument in Oklahoma in 2014.

The reality is, the more we depart from God’s laws, the more we find ourselves in bondage, far less free than we were before. Rather than shouting “Freedom!”, Reed should have shouted, “Bondage! Self-destruction! Captivity! Decline!”

Reed claimed that such monuments are a violation of the separation of church and state, a phrase not found in the Constitution, something that seems to have escaped Justice Sotamayor this week, and, more importantly, a phrase that meant the opposite of what Reed envisions.

In truth, the so-called wall of separation was there to keep the state out of the church, not the church out of the state. And the idea that having a public Ten Commandments display would be a violation of American principles would be totally foreign to our founders.

While doing research for my new book, Saving a Sick America: A Prescription for Moral and Cultural Reformation, due out in September, I was struck by how big a role the Bible played in early American education, from the colonies to the late 1800s. I was also struck by how deeply biblical principles influenced our founders, even though they did not want America to be a theocracy.

In other words, they were not trying to impose the biblical faith on the nation, which certainly included a significant minority of irreligious people, even back then, nor were they trying to impose biblical morality on the populace by judicial decree. Instead, many of the founders were convinced that the Bible was filled with practical wisdom and that God’s commands brought life, not death. The greater extent we embrace these principles as a democratic republic, the better.

Consider this extraordinary quote from our second president, John Adams:

Suppose a nation in some distant region should take the Bible for their only law book, and every member should regulate his conduct by the precepts there exhibited. Every member would be obliged in conscience to temperance and frugality and industry, to justice and kindness and charity towards his fellow men, and to piety and love, and reverence towards Almighty God. In this commonwealth, no man would impair his health by gluttony, drunkenness or lust—no man would sacrifice his most precious time to cards, or any other trifling and mean amusement—no man would steal or rile or any way defraud his neighbor, but would live in peace and good will with all men—no man would blaspheme his maker or profane his worship, but a rational and manly, a sincere and unaffected piety and devotion would reign in all hearts. What a utopia, what a paradise would this region be.

This quote, along with those that follow, is found in Saving a Sick America, with attribution.

Today we are told that the Bible is an evil book and the God of the Bible an evil, bigoted, petty tyrant. Such tyrants deserve our scorn. That is that attitude aflame in many American hearts today.

In sharp contrast, Samuel Adams, one of the leaders of the American Revolution, stated that the rights of the colonists “may be best understood by reading and carefully studying the institutes of the great Law-giver and head of the Christian Church [Jesus], which are to be found clearly written and promulgated in the New Testament.”

Because of that, Adams could say, “A general dissolution of principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy. While the people are virtuous, they cannot be subdued; but when once they lose their virtue, they will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader.”

Michael Reed not only represents that “general dissolution of principles and manners.” He articulates it in a full assault, thereby speaking for millions of Americans.

We do best to quickly re-erect that Ten Commandments monument and, more importantly, recapture the life-giving beauty of God’s commandments in our own hearts and lives. That is the only hope of our nation. {eoa}

While Iran routinely threatens Israel and its Lebanese terror proxy, Hezbollah, has a vast arsenal of rockets pointed at the Jewish state, experts say the Islamic Republic was sending messages elsewhere through its first missile strike on another country in three decades.

Iran struck Islamic State targets in Syria on June 18, in retaliation for Islamic State’s twin terror attacks against prominent Iranian institutions June 7. Iran had not launched a missile strike on another nation since the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s.

Situated nearly 1,800 kilometers (1,118 miles) away from Israel, Iran reportedly has missiles capable of reaching the Jewish state. The precision-guided Zolfaghar missiles Iran fired Sunday into the Syrian city of Deir ez-Zor have a range of about 750 kilometers (466 miles). Iran proceeded to showcase Zolfaghar missiles Friday during anti-Israel “Al-Quds Day” rallies.

The Israeli government has ongoing concerns about Iran’s nuclear program, ballistic missile program and state sponsorship of terrorism, but the Iranian missile strike in Syria seemingly had little to do with the Jewish state.

Dr. Raz Zimmt, an Iran expert at two Israeli think tanks, the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) and the Forum for Regional Thinking, told Iran’s missile attack was “a direct response to the [June 7] terror attack in Tehran and a message both for domestic, regional and international use.”

Zimmt explained that, internationally, Iran “wanted to send a message that it considers its missile capabilities to be vital to its national interests, especially in light of the growing U.S. criticism against this capability.” The U.S. Senate passed new sanctions against Iran’s ballistic missile program June 15.

“The Iranian regime wanted to send a message to its rivals, especially the Saudis, and to a lesser extent, in my view, Israel, showing its strength as a regional power,” Zimmt said.

This article was originally published at . Used with permission.

He called on his way home from fishing, but I could tell there was something wrong.

“Well, I’ve got a flat tire,” he said.

“Oh no. Where are you?” I asked.

“Would you believe I’m just a few blocks away from our tire store? Why couldn’t the tire have blown just two minutes later? I’ve got a problem. When we bought the new rims this year, I didn’t realize my tire iron wouldn’t fit anymore.”

Then we played that fun marriage game where the guy tries to describe to the girl what tool he needs from the garage.

After figuring out what he wanted, I drove the equipment to him, only to find out none of what I brought worked. I was frustrated. Lord, really? Why couldn’t you have gotten Matt a few more blocks down the road?

So I drove to Les Schwab and played another game of “try to explain what you need to the car guy behind the counter.” That resulted in me calling Matt and handing the phone to the guy.

I am such a girl.

Would you believe the man loaned me the tool we needed? “How soon can you get this back to me?” he said. I told him five minutes. By then it was 5:40 and close to closing time. I lied—it was 5:50 when I returned it. I told the Les Schwab man he was my hero.

At home that evening, Matt looked at me and said, “Can you imagine what would have happened if that tire had blown while I was out fishing? An hour away from home, in the boonies, with no cell service and no fitting tire iron? How good was it of God to have me lose the tire just a few blocks away from the tire store.”

Well, yes. How good it was. I voiced my agreement.

And how nice of that guy to let me walk out of his store with the tool I needed. He took a risk that I was telling the truth and would return it.

Paul says: “In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you” (1 Thess. 5:18).

Once again, I have been schooled to hunt for the good in every circumstance, instead of defaulting to griping.

And you? In what hard situation do you need to practice thankfulness today? {eoa}

Adapted from Christy Fitzwater’s blog. Christy Fitzwater is a pastor’s wife, Spanish teacher, author and speaker in Montana.

David Aikman is an award-winning print and broadcast journalist, a best-selling author, and a foreign affairs commentator. His wide-ranging professional achievements include teaching journalism at Patrick Henry University and a 23-year career at Time Magazine with reporting spanning the globe of nearly all the major historical events of the time. Since leaving Time, he has authored ten books.  Aikman is now retired and living in Ireland.

President Trump’s administration is moving forward to implement an executive order that revokes the Obama policy on waters of the United States. The EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers are proposing a rule to rescind the Clean Water Rule regulation established by President Obama.

The Obama-era policy gives the federal government authority over a staggering 60 percent of the water bodies in the United States, including small streams, private ponds, intermittent streams and even wetlands on private property created by seasonal rain.

The president intends to return to a policy consistent with the original Clean Water Act of 1972 and grant authority only to federal authorities over actual navigable waters that affect interstate commerce. Montana Senator Steve Daines put it this way: “Out-of-state D.C. bureaucrats shouldn’t impose regulations that hurt Montana farmers, ranchers and landowners.” 

The story below is just one among many that illustrates the importance of getting the boot of the federal government off the necks of ordinary Americans.

I wrote this column in 2008 when I served as the director of the Idaho Values Alliance. I worked with Sen. Mike Crapo’s office to get a pardon request into President Bush’s hands before he left office in January, 2009, but unfortunately, the pardon request was not acted upon.

Here is the column as it originally read:

August 5, 2008 

Lynn Moses is scheduled to be locked up in federal prison on August 6. His crime? Protecting the city of Driggs from flooding.

When Mr. Moses began to develop a subdivision along Teton Creek in 1980, Teton County required him to implement an engineer’s plan to modify the Teton Creek stream bed to prevent the flooding of subdivision property from the buildup of gravel bars and downed trees during high water flows in the spring.

In fact, the county would not allow him even to record the plat for the subdivision until the modification work had been done and only allowed the development after requiring the homeowner’s association to maintain the flood control channel year after year.

Teton Creek used to be a flowing stream, but irrigation diversion over 100 years ago de-watered the creek and left the stream bed dry for all but two months a year at the most. Water only fills the stream bed when irrigators have more water than they can use. This means there is no aquatic environment here nor any wetland.

Officials from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers were invited to a planning meeting with the county and Mr. Moses in 1980, but they soon left the meeting after informing county officials that they had “classified the stream as intermittent and therefore outside their jurisdiction.” 

So working on plans developed by an engineer and approved—in fact, required—by the county, Mr. Moses got to work and cleared the channel of gravel bars and downed cottonwood trees to ensure that the channel would serve as a flood control structure.

For years he has walked the entire length of the creek to evaluate conditions and then remove gravel bars, sand, logs and debris as necessary to keep the channel clear and satisfy the subdivision’s obligation to the county.

When Driggs flooded in the spring of 1981—due to a clogged culvert under a county road—the county approached the Corps a second time, asking for funding and help to replace the culvert with a bridge to prevent future flooding. Once again, the Corps said, “Nope, not our problem, not our fault, not our responsibility to fix. We don’t have jurisdiction.”

Why? Because, they repeated again, “Teton Creek is an intermittent stream, and we have no jurisdiction unless there is water in the stream bed at least three months out of the year.” Thus twice the federal government pointedly and definitively washed its hands of the whole thing.

Since 1982, all Mr. Moses has done is to provide the necessary maintenance to ensure that the stream bed does not get clogged with gravel, sediment, fallen trees and other debris so that the stream bed can continue to siphon flood water away from homes and the city of Driggs.

He did his work when the stream bed was dry, of course, and never put anything into the stream bed, only took pollutants like sedimentation, sand and gravel out.

Tellingly, in 1984, when the Forest Service needed to build a road, they came to this same stretch of Teton Creek and—without any kind of permit—contracted with Mr. Moses to excavate between 5,000 and 6,000 cubic yards of gravel from the bed, all of which was inspected by government officials.

Every four or five years, when new staff would replace the old, and a generation would arise “who knew not Joseph,” Mr. Moses would receive a letter from the Corps of Engineers, insisting that he needed to get a permit from them for his maintenance work. He’d write them back, informing him that, according to the Corps itself, they had no jurisdiction over intermittent streams. That would be that.

He’d hear nothing for another four to five years, after which another staff rotation led to another letter from the Corps and to a similar reply from Mr. Moses. And so it went for over 20 years.

An aggressive Corps staffer tried to convince the U.S. Attorney to prosecute Mr. Moses in 1995, and the U.S. Attorney told him to take a hike since the Corps had no jurisdictional authority to initiate legal action.

According to former state legislator Lee Gagner, the Corps “discussed his process many times with him, but could not show where they had jurisdiction on the seasonal, intermittent stream.” Gagner adds, “[T]o this day, they do not have written rules indicating this to be true.” 

As far as Gagner knows, the Corps never completed what is called a Jurisdictional Determination that their own rules even gave them any authority over this particular intermittent stream. Jurisdiction is determined on a case-by-case basis with intermittent streams.

At this point, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), emboldened by newly granted bureaucratic authority, jumped in and went right after Mr. Moses, indicting and prosecuting him for violating the Clean Water Act in the years 2002, 2003 and 2004 for doing nothing more than the routine maintenance on the channel he had been doing for 20 years, under requirements imposed by local government.

Presiding federal judge Lynn Winmill, who has a well-deserved reputation for judicial activism, refused to allow Teton County commissioners to testify to the original agreement nor would he allow the aggressive Corps staffer to testify about the refusal of the U.S. Attorney to prosecute in the mid-90s.

Before the jury was dismissed to enter into deliberations at the conclusion of his trial, Judge Lynn Winmill instructed the jury, believe it or not, to disregard every bit of information from 1980 to 2002, including the Corps’ denial of jurisdiction and the mandate from local government for Mr. Moses to maintain the flood channel.

Instructed by this notoriously activist judge to ignore facts, reason and legal history, the jury returned with a guilty verdict, finding Mr. Moses guilty of “discharging” “pollutants” into one of the “waters of the United States.” 

His conviction ignores the fact that no evidence was ever presented in court that Mr. Moses “discharged” anything into the stream bed at all. He only removed sand and gravel bars that were already there and which he was contractually obligated to remove. He was extracting material from the channel, not discharging material into it.

No evidence was presented in court by the EPA that there was any water at all in the stream bed during those years for Mr. Moses to “discharge” anything into. The EPA claims that “fallback”—material from the bank falling back into the stream bed—represents a “discharge,” but it offers no objective criteria for deciding how much “fallback” it takes to cross the magic threshold, meaning the EPA used sheer speculation to assert a violation.

Worse, Mr. Moses was convicted of “pollut(ing) a spawning area for Yellowstone cutthroat trout” despite the fact that there have been no fish in this stream bed for more than 150 years. Mr. Gagner, who has lived near the flood channel for 18 years, says he has never seen fish in this stream bed. And it’s not even possible for the stream bed to serve as a spawning ground since it only has water two months out of every year in the first place.

Although the director of the EPA in Idaho, Jim Wernitz, asserts that Mr. Moses had damaged “wetlands” associated with the stream, there are no wetlands there! The very word requires that land be, well, wet, but the stream bed is bone dry for at least 10 months out of every year. Wernitz is apparently ignorant of the fact that the Government had previously stipulated that there are no wetlands surrounding the storm channel nor any aquatic environment that could be damaged.

In the plurality opinion of the U.S. Supreme Court in the 2006 Rapanos case, Justice Scalia wrote that the Clean Water Act in fact gives the federal government jurisdiction only over “relatively permanent, standing or continuously flowing bodies of water” and explicitly added, “[T]he ‘waters of the United States’ does not include channels through which water flows intermittently or ephemerally or channels that periodically provide drainage for rainfall.” 

Embarrassingly for Judge Winmill, this ruling was handed down on the very day Mr. Moses was originally sentenced to prison. Eight months later, the Corps of Engineers revised its own rules in a way that makes it abundantly clear that the federal government has no jurisdiction over an intermittent stream like Teton Creek.

No matter. With other notoriously activist federal judges in the 9th Circuit refusing to overturn lower court convictions on appeal, Mr. Moses has been forced to spend almost $400,000 of his own money in a losing effort to defend himself for protecting the city of Driggs from catastrophic flooding.

Mr. Moses’ wife died unexpectedly of a heart attack a year and a half ago. Friends tell me the stress of their 25-year battle with the federal government and the stress of the guilty verdict contributed to her early death. Mr. Moses, when I spoke with him this morning, agrees that this is a likely possibility.

The death of his wife has left Mr. Moses to raise his 17-year-old daughter by himself, a daughter who will have to fend for herself once her sole surviving parent is tossed behind bars—in another state no less—for the next 18 months.

His daughter, just now entering her senior year in high school, will be deprived of his comfort and counsel right when she needs it the most. Mr. Moses will miss his daughter’s companionship and miss the joy of her 18th birthday party, her senior prom and her graduation ceremony.

Virtually everything is wrong with this story. It’s an egregious violation of the constitutional limitations on federal power, as federal bureaucrats simply dismissed the fact that Mr. Moses was required by local authorities to do exactly what he was doing.

Bureaucratic government agencies, aided and abetted by activist judges, acted as petty tyrants and incarcerated a man not for doing evil but for doing good. A fine man has been chewed up by the grinding maw of a mindless and inhumane federal government and will spend the next year and a half of his life behind bars, not for endangering the families in his community but for protecting them.

His attorney calls the whole thing “a travesty,” which is just about the mildest thing that can be said about this unconscionable miscarriage of justice.

As Elaine Jones said in a letter published by the Idaho Press-Tribune, “A good, honorable widower is leaving his daughter to others to raise and is going to prison for following the rules, obeying the law and helping his friends stay safe from flooding.” 

As George Washington is reputed to have said, “Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.” Lynn Moses will tell you that the government’s fire cannot just singe you but burn you to a crisp.

Update: My latest information is that Lynn Moses served his full stretch and was eventually released to a halfway house before returning to his hometown. His eyesight was affected during his incarceration because of the lack of medical attention he received while in federal custody.

{eoa}

Bryan Fischer is host of the two-hour weekday “Focal Point” program on American Family Radio.

This article was originally posted at . Used with permission.

This past week was one of the most amazing gatherings ever. We continue to witness the apostolic-prophetic army arising and maturing for the future. Every speaker was incredible. In Dutch Sheet’s message, Dutch used several number sequences to describe what the Lord is doing in the world and His Kingdom people. The last number sequence was 5-5-5. Five (5) is the number for grace! He said, “I keep seeing 5-5-5 … it’s triple grace. It’s a season of grace!” He went on to share how:

• There’s grace to go up higher to a new administration and governmental realm.

• There’s grace to come out of the confusion, disarray and disorder.

• There’s grace to bind and loose.

• There’s grace to open doors and close doors.

• There’s not just grace or double grace, but triple grace! The Lord is going to release an explosion of grace! 

Before the service, someone had come to give me a water bottle with 5-5-5 written on the outside with three $5 bills inside. I went up and shared this when Dutch released the word, and he shouted:

“I’m telling you – it’s a Word from the Lord! It’s an explosion of grace! We’re about to move into a mega-grace season! I’m not decreeing that just as a hope; I’m prophesying to you as a Word from the Lord. We’re about to move into a mega-grace season that will be explosive in nature! dynamite grace, dunamis grace, power and grace mixed together. There is an explosion of the miraculous coming.” He then decreed how there will be:

• An Explosion of provision
• An Explosion of revelation
• An Explosion of authority
• An Explosive Level of harvest and strength

This is a season for triple grace, grace, grace. This is the time for mega-grace, mega-healing, mega-deliverance and mega-breakthrough. This is a time for the grace of God to be released over:

• your mind,
• your home,
• your ministry,
• and over generational weaknesses, infirmities, and iniquities!

What the enemy has had in you and in your family line for generations will be broken by the explosion of grace that’s coming to you. This is your season of breakthrough. Fear will be broken off of you in this season. Generational weaknesses and iniquities will be bound and broken off of you. Perversions and addictions that try to rise up again will be eradicated from your DNA and genetic code.

God is breaking that off of you because grace is greater than the sin of your parents and grandparents; every generational iniquity and weakness that the enemy has used to hold you back will be broken. Generational poverty and failure are being broken off of you because an explosion of grace is coming to you now! 

21-Day Prayer Focus for You to Shout Grace and Receive Favor:

Day 1: Read Romans 6. Grace is kindness and goodness shown without regard to the worth or merit of the one who receives and in spite of what is deserved.

Day 2: Read Exodus 34. Grace is one of the key attributes of God. The Lord God is “merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in goodness and truth” (Ex. 34:6b).

Day 3: Read Psalm 23. Grace is the source of help and brings deliverance from distress.

Day 4: Meditate on Deuteronomy 9:5-6. The Hebrew people from Egypt were redeemed and then established in the Promised Land in spite of their unrighteousness.

Day 5: Read Psalms 4:1, 6:2, 25:15/ Receive the gracious assistance from the Lord.

Day 6: Read and meditate on Psalm 31:9, 86:3, 86:16, 123:3! Receive more assistance.

Day 7: Meditate on Amos 5: is only enjoyed within the covenant. The gift is given by God, and the gift is received by man, through repentance and faith.

Day 8: Ponder Malachi 1:9 and read Malachi 3-4. Grace is to be humbly sought through the prayer of faith.

Day 9: Read John 1, Acts 1. The grace of God was supremely revealed and given in the person and work of Jesus Christ. He was the embodiment of grace. Embracing Him is the only way mankind can receive salvation.

Day 10: Read Romans 3, especially verses 23-26. Grace is restoration of the broken fellowship between God and His people—both Jew and Gentile.

Day 11: Read Ephesian 2. Grace can be yours through salvation.

Day 12: Read Ephesians 4. Meditate on Hebrews 10:29. Grace is applied by the Holy Spirit, who is called “the Spirit of grace.” The Spirit of God is the One who binds Christ to His people so that they receive forgiveness, adoption to sonship and newness of life, as well as every spiritual gift of grace.

Day 13: Read Acts 4, especially verse 33. Receive great grace. Great grace was upon the early church. They saw great miracles. The Greek word for “great” is “megas,” from which we derive the English word “mega.” They saw great signs, great wonders, great miracles … mega- miracles. Why did they see mega miracles? Because they had mega grace.

Receive Favor

Day 14: Read Isaiah 60. Grace and favor are a necessary handshake for triumph. Favor is where someone shines their eye on you and you begin to shine.

Day 15: Read 2 Kings 4:1-6. Favor is received through an act of obedience.

Day 16: Read 2 Kings 8:1-6. Favor is extended to you from another source.

Day 17: Read Ruth 2. Think of a time when favor was extended to you. Praise God for it.

Day 18: Read 1 Kings 12:1-16 and Esther 6. Think of someone you need to honor. Call or write that person to honor them. Honor must be reciprocated to maintain favor.

Day 19: Read Matthew 9. Favor comes from those who have authority to release favor.

Day 20: Read Judges 1:12-15 and 2 Samuel 9. Favor can be released by you!

Day 21: Read Zechariah 3 and 4. Decree that the Lord is re-clothing you with a new identity. Shout grace to the mountains that stopped you from advancing in the last season. Shout grace seven times! 

In Possessing Your Inheritance, I share a powerful account of how even in the midst of life’s greatest losses, God truly does extend the grace we need to press through. Gerald L. Sittser, an associate professor of religion at Whitworth College in Spokane, Washington, is an incredible example. In the fall of 1991, while he was driving home with his family, his minivan was hit head-on by a drunk driver. His mother, wife and young daughter were all killed in the accident. In his book A Grace Disguised: How the Soul Grows Through Loss, Sittser writes of his tragic experience and how God has helped him through it. He says:

“Above all, I have become aware of the power of God’s grace and my need for it. My soul has grown because it has been awakened to the goodness and love of God … God is growing my soul, making it bigger, and filling it with Himself. My life is being transformed. Though I have endured pain, I believe that the outcome is going to be wonderful.

“The supreme challenge to anyone facing catastrophic loss involves facing the darkness of the loss on the one hand, and learning to live with renewed vitality and gratitude on the other. This challenge is met when we learn to take the loss into ourselves and to be enlarged by it, so that our capacity to live life well and to know God intimately increases … Loss can diminish us, but it can also expand us. It depends, once again, on the choices we make and the grace we receive. Loss can function as a catalyst to transform us. It can lead us to God, the only One who has the desire and power to give us life.” (Zondervan Publishing, 1996; pp. 180-181)

By reaching out toward God’s wonderful grace, our loss can actually become a bittersweet blessing that leads us to knowing God on a deeper and more intimate level. Though we mourn the loss, we gain a new maturity in life, and a deeper understanding of God’s awesome grace and hope.

These are days of receiving and extending mega-grace! {eoa}

Charles D. “Chuck” Pierce serves as President of Global Spheres, Inc. (GSI) in Corinth, Texas. This is an apostolic, prophetic ministry that is being used to gather and mobilize the worshipping Triumphant Reserve throughout the world. Chuck also serves as President of Glory of Zion International Ministries, a ministry that aligns Jew and Gentile. He is known for his accurate prophetic gifting which helps direct nations, cities, churches and individuals in understanding the times and seasons in which we live. Chuck and his wife, Pam, have six children and seven grandchildren. He has authored over 20 books, including the best-sellers Interpreting the Times, Redeeming the Time, and Time to Defeat the Devil.

Our friends at Circa, Jay Soloman and Sara A. Carter, report that acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, a central player in the Russia election case, is now the focus of three separate federal administrative inquiries into allegations about his behavior as a senior bureau executive, according to documents and interviews.

The documents show the allegations being reviewed range from sexual discrimination to improper political activity, say Soloman and Carter.

Circa reported Monday that former supervisory special agent Robyn Gritz, a decorated counterterrorism agent, has filed a sexual discrimination and retaliation complaint that names McCabe and other top FBI officials.

Gritz also filed a complaint against McCabe with the main federal whistleblower agency in April, alleging social media photos she found show he campaigned for his wife’s Virginia state senate race in violation of the Hatch Act.

And it is that Hatch Act complaint that has landed like a grenade in McCabe’s shorts.

The Office of U.S. Special Counsel, the government’s main whistleblower agency, is investigating whether McCabe’s activities supporting his wife Jill’s Democratic campaign for Virginia state senate in 2015 violated the Hatch Act’s prohibition against FBI agents campaigning in partisan races.

The agency’s probe was prompted by a complaint in April from a former FBI agent who forwarded social media photos showing McCabe wearing a T-shirt supporting his wife’s campaign during a public event and then posting a photo on social media urging voters to join him in voting for his wife.

“I am voting for Jill because she is the best wife ever,” McCabe put on a sign that he photographed himself holding. The photo was posted on her social media page a few days before the election, in response to Dr. Jill McCabe’s plea to “help me win” by posting photos expressing reasons why voters should vote for her, according to the complaint.

Other social media photos in the complaint showed McCabe’s minor daughter campaigning with her mother while wearing an FBI shirt and McCabe voting with his wife at a polling station.

The Hatch Act prohibits FBI employees from engaging “in political activity in concert with a political party, a candidate for partisan political office or a partisan political group.”

It defines prohibited political activity as “any activity directed at the success or failure of a partisan group or candidate in a partisan election.”

An ethics expert told Circa the photos raised legitimate questions about McCabe’s compliance with the law.

However, the most damning evidence of a Hatch Act violation came from an open records request filed with Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe’s office.

Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s office released to Circa under the Freedom of Information Act documents showing McCabe attended a meeting with his wife and the governor on a Saturday in March 2015 specifically to discuss having Jill McCabe run for state Senate in Virginia as a Democrat.

“This is a candidate recruitment meeting. McCabe is seriously considering running against State Senator Dick Black. You have been asked to close the deal,” the briefing memo for McAuliffe read.

Included in the governor’s briefing package was a copy of McCabe’s FBI biography. The biography made clear that Andrew McCabe was a senior executive who, at the time, oversaw the FBI’s Washington field office that among many tasks supervised investigations in northern Virginia.

At the time of the meeting, write Soloman and Carter, published reports indicate agents in the Washington field office were involved in both a probe of McAuliffe and of the governor’s close friend Hillary Clinton and her private email account.

The Hatch Act poster hanging inside FBI offices to urge compliance clearly states that an FBI employee “may not knowingly solicit or discourage the political activity of any person with business before the agency.”

FBI sources, who spoke only on condition of anonymity, said agents were specifically concerned that McCabe’s meeting with McAuliffe about supporting Jill McCabe’s campaign constituted a solicitation of a person with business before the bureau.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, has now weighed in asking the Justice Department to investigate McCabe:

“While Mr. McCabe recused himself from public corruption cases in Virginia—presumably including the reportedly ongoing investigation of Mr. McAuliffe regarding illegal campaign contributions—he failed to recuse himself from the Clinton email investigation, despite the appearance of conflict created by his wife’s campaign accepting $700,000 from a close Clinton associate during the investigation,” Grassley wrote in seeking the IG probe.

When questions first arose about the money Jill McCabe’s campaign got from McAuliffe, the FBI insisted that Andrew McCabe never used his FBI role to aid her campaign and “did not participate in fundraising or support of any kind” for his wife’s political run. The documents from McAuliffe’s office and the $700,000 given to his wife’s campaign make that appear to be a lie.

With three investigations hanging over his head and an obvious lie now made public it’s time for Andrew McCabe to go. If he won’t retire once his successor, Christopher Wray, is confirmed, then Wray’s first act should be to fire him. {eoa}

This article was originally published at . Used with permission.

I’ve found that sometimes individuals reject the ministry of healing for ridiculous reasons. I would like to briefly take a look at this conundrum.

Let’s consider the scientific community for a moment. Although the highly educated claim to be objective, some of their underlying biases cause distortion. Craig Keener argues, “Modern Western academicians have probably tended to discount and ignore some miracle claims not only for cultural reasons but also, unconsciously, for class reasons.”

This condescending attitude was evident centuries ago when philosopher David Hume wrote: 

It forms a strong presumption against all supernatural and miraculous relations, that they are observed chiefly to abound among ignorant and barbarous nations; or if a civilized people has ever given admission to any of them, that people will be found to have received them from ignorant and barbarous ancestors.

James Dale Van Buskirk suggests that the ministry of healing “spread among an entirely different class of people, as to economic, cultural and social background,” namely, “the underprivileged and dispossessed people, folk to whom emotional religion makes an especial appeal.” 

In other words, they are saying that the ministry of healing should be disregarded because of its prominence among the poor. They claim that whatever the “lower classes” believe must be held in suspicion.

Tragically, healing claims are not only rejected because they “come from the very poor,” but also because of their preponderance in one gender. It was with seething condescension that one educated minister suggested that the ministry of healing constituted a “feminine superstition.”

There is something deeply skewed when wonderful biblical practices are rejected because of gender and class. While most would not stoop to this level, few are authentically as objective as they believe.

Within the arcane rules of the U.S. Senate, there is one that prohibits committees from holding hearings after the second hour of business during the day.

It’s a rule that hasn’t been used in a very long time, that is until recently. The Senate Judiciary Committee planned to meet Wednesday for a hearing into the “unmasking” of U.S. citizens—particularly members of President Donald Trump’s campaign staff—by the Intelligence Community, possibly for political reasons. But Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., invoke the so-called “two-hour rule” to prevent the hearing.

The committee’s chairman, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, was incensed by the move.

“The federal government’s primary responsibility is to protect the American people, so it’s unbelievable that the minority leader would block senators from both parties from holding a national security briefing to examine our nation’s most critical tools to protect the homeland,” he said. “Today, the Judiciary Committee was set to hear from senior intelligence officials about highly sensitive intelligence gathering authorities that will soon require action from Congress.

“It’s disturbing and reckless for the minority leader to block the briefing. We’ve seen too many recent reminders of how unsafe the world is today. This is no time to play politics with our national security.”

Apparently, it’s not the first time Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has used the rule to obstruct committee business related to this investigation.

In a statement to the media Wednesday, Grassley’s office stated:

Over the last two weeks, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has abused a rarely-used procedural tool to block Senate committee business from taking place two hours after the Senate convenes session for the day. Grassley rebuked Schumer last week for using the same tactics, which cut short a hearing on free speech, blocked a hearing on Russian interference in the U.S. democratic process and cancelled a markup to advance bipartisan anti-human trafficking legislation.

The investigation into the matter continues, although it’s unclear when the hearing will be rescheduled. In the meantime, Grassley and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., have requested additional information regarding the unmasking scandal.

In a letter to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, they have requested all proposed and final applications for surveillance warrants that the FBI reportedly sought from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 elections. This includes any applications submitted in the FBI’s investigation into alleged collusion between Russia and Trump campaign associates.

The letter states:

The 2016 FISC Report, which provides annual statistics about the Court’s actions in general, states that in 2016 the FISC denied nine applications or certifications, and denied in part or modified 365 orders. While the 2016 FISC Report provides Congress and the public this information, it does not report “any modifications made by the government to [a proposed] application or certification that it had submitted pursuant to Rule 9(a).” While we understand that this may be part of a routine FISC process, it is important for the Committee to understand fully the context of and basis for requests to the FISC related to this particular matter. We have some reason to believe these processes have been used in these investigations. For example, on January 11, 2017, the Guardian reported that:

 [T]he FBI applied for a warrant from the foreign intelligence surveillance court (FISA) over the summer in order to monitor four members of the Trump team suspected of irregular contact with Russian officials. The FISA court turned down the application asking FBI counter-intelligence investigators to narrow its focus.

The next day, the BBC stated that Justice Department attorneys involved in the investigation of Russian election interference submitted a FISA application to the FISC focused on two Russian banks, reporting:

Their first application, in June, was rejected outright by the judge. They returned with a more narrowly drawn order in July and were rejected again.

There have been subsequent media reports claiming the FBI submitted and received approval of a FISA application in the investigation that was based on the political opposition research dossier. {eoa}