Dallas Jenkins says Joni Eareckson Tada was gasping for breath, her voice choked by tears, overwhelmed by the story she just saw.

It was the pilot episode of The Chosen, a first-of-its kind streaming series about the life of Christ.

Jenkins, the director of feature films What If and The Resurrection of Gavin Stone, stumbled into the series kind of by accident after the latter flopped at the box office.

It’s now the No. 1 crowdfunded media project of all time and guaranteed to give a familiar story a fresh take. So far, the show has raised more than $8 million.

Inspired by the scene in Passion of the Christ where Jesus is splashing his mother with water, Jenkins says his series will give a richer backstory to many of the characters listed in Scripture. He is not adding to Scripture, but providing historical context and personality into the people listed in the Gospels.

Listen to the interview (beginning at minute 26) to hear more.

Former HGTV star Joanna Gaines made a powerful resolution on New Year’s Day through an Instagram post.

The mom of five pledged to live in the moment instead of mourning the past or worrying about the future, a sentiment also expressed in Matthew 6:31-34:

Therefore, take no thought, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ (For the Gentiles seek after all these things.) For your heavenly Father knows that you have need of all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be given to you. Therefore, take no thought about tomorrow, for tomorrow will take thought about the things of itself. Sufficient to the day is the trouble thereof.

View this post on Instagram

It’s always been my nature to reflect on the past and linger there a while. I find myself thinking about what I will miss and how life is just moving too fast. I mean Crew is already six months old and saying “mama” (I had to throw that in there, sorry Chip). Drake will be driving in two years and off to college in four. And just like that I have found myself mourning the past but now in future tense. You see what I just did there? This whole time thing can feel like a thief if you let it. I’m challenging myself in this new year to live for now. The present. Taking in every breath, every sight, and sound and holding it dearly. Not thinking about how the good ol’ days have passed us by or how the best is yet to come. But that right now, this very second, this is the gift. These are the days. These are the moments. And I’m gonna breathe them all in. If there’s pain and sorrow, or happiness and hope, let it in and then let it out. I want to enjoy the now because it’s the only thing we can actually embrace. I want to hold it carefully. Hold it thoughtfully. I want to rid myself of the little distractions because I have found that these are the thieves that steal our moments and rob our days. But time, time is our most precious gift. Here’s to seeing and finding the beauty, the hope and joy in the right now in 2019. And for goodness sake, let’s have some fun while we’re at it! It’s going to be a happy new year indeed. Believing that for all of us. #wonderinthenow #thesearethedays

A post shared by Joanna Stevens Gaines (@joannagaines) on Jan 1, 2019 at 7:42am PST

The Gaines family stepped away from HGTV in 2016 to focus on family. The couple welcomed their fifth child in June.

In November, they announced their return to television with a new network.

Mark Hitchcock knows a thing or two about the end of the world.

The prolific author is well-versed in eschatology and discussed it at length in his latest book, End Times Survival Guide. And he has a few warnings for those obsessed with the apocalypse:

“I think a lot of people in the area of prophecy get into a lot of speculation about all kinds of things and begin to set dates, which the Bible clearly forbid,” Hitchcock says in an interview with Charisma. “Jesus said, ‘No one knows the day or the hour, ‘ but people try to figure out who the Antichrist is and then name somebody.

“I always tell people that I don’t think the Antichrist is going to appear till after the rapture. So I say, if you ever figure out who the Antichrist is, I got bad news for you, so you don’t want to know who the Antichrist is. But there’s a lot of speculation out there about a lot of things, and we need to just stick with what the Bible says. What the Bible says is really exciting enough, we don’t need to decorate it anymore with a lot of wild speculation, but we need to remember that God gave Bible prophecy to us not to scare us, but to prepare us and not to make us anxious, but to make us aware of what’s happening and to call us to live godly lives in light of that.”

But that’s just the beginning. Listen to the podcast to hear the rest of the fascinating interview.

Conservatives may have experienced a loss in 2018 House midterm races, but victory is a significant and powerful reality when it comes to the nation’s courts.

Because Republicans increased control of the Senate, appointments of conservative jurists will continue in 2019, says Stephen E. Strang, a best-selling author who released his newest book, Trump Aftershock, on Election Day.

Strang says the country’s judiciary is of utmost importance to evangelical voters, and the knowledge and assurance that President Donald Trump is succeeding in this realm—and can continue to do so—is crucial.

“This was one of the promises evangelicals were counting on President Trump to keep—and he has,” Strang said. “Smart Christian voters knew that how Trump worked the judicial system during his time in office would have implications for generations to come. Evangelicals have watched without recourse as their customs and religious beliefs have come under assault by the education establishment, the media and, most damaging, the federal courts. Supreme Court rulings in the 1960s stripped prayer and Bible reading from the public schools. There were no riots, no marches. Instead, believers stood by in silence, fearing there was nothing they could do. But that was only the beginning.

“Today Christian bakers, florists and wedding planners, along with restaurant, hotel and resort owners, are under the constant threat of losing their livelihood, their homes and their freedom for simply abiding by the time-honored principles of their faith,” Strang added. “Evangelicals want to make sure these things never happen again, at least while they can do something about it. And this is a major reason why many evangelicals continue to support President Trump. The midterm election may have been a loss in some respects, but it was a huge win for America’s court system in the minds of the faithful.”

Trump Aftershock explores the “president’s seismic impact on culture and faith in America” and uncovers unreported facts while objectively helping readers understand what the nation’s most unlikely and unconventional president has accomplished.

Two of the most popular New Year’s resolutions are to “save money” and “eat healthier.” Most people think you have to pick one or the other because eating healthy is too expensive, but that’s not true. You can actually switch to a healthier diet without breaking the bank.

Tiffany Terczak is living proof eating right doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg. Far from it. She feeds her Atlanta family of four with super healthy foods, often organics, for the low, low cost of only $330 a month!

And Terczak gives God the glory for what she sees as a miracle financial healing that came her way during the process.

She and her husband were languishing under a “scary amount of debt,” so they prayed for help from the Lord. Not long after that, she realized the grocery budget had the “greatest amount of wiggle-room” compared to fixed expenses like the mortgage and car payment.

Climbing out of Debt—By Getting a Grip on the Grocery Budget

“If we ever wanted to climb out of debt, it had to be with the grocery budget,” Terczak told CBN News.

They achieved their goal, largely by slashing grocery spending in half, and as an added blessing, without sacrificing the health of their family.

“We eat real food, so food that comes from the ground and animals that eat plants from the ground,” she told CBN News, “We hardly eat anything processed, and by processed I’m referring to boxes, just-add-water type of things. We don’t eat that.”

She says this didn’t happen by accident.

“God has pulled us out of the depths of debt and gave me the skill,” she told CBN News, adding, “Even if your budget’s really small, you can still eat well within a small budget.”

{eoa}

Click here to read the rest of this story from our content partners at CBN News.

Have rabbis tampered with the holy Scriptures to keep Jewish people from knowing about Jesus as the Messiah?

Dr. Philip Moore tells Sid Roth that he uncovered shocking research over a years-long investigation that reveals the mind-blowing conspiracy.

Watch the video to see the full explanation.

Apple has officially removed an app from its store that was created to help people with same-sex attraction because of critics calling it “homophobic” in nature.

The app, created by Living Hope Ministries, a Christian nonprofit from Texas, works to proclaim a traditional biblical view of marriage, that is, one between man and woman.

The banning of the app came after Truth Wins Out, a national gay rights organization, created a petition to have it removed from the App Store. {eoa}

Darren Wilson was not a household name when he set up his camera to interview Bill Johnson.

Wilson, who is now known for his films Finger of God, Holy Ghost and Holy Ghost Reborn, was just following what the Lord asked him to do.

Once Johnson agreed to be filmed, other popular names followed: Heidi Baker, Randy Clark, Todd White.

“The best way to describe them is God-umentaries,” Wilson shares on “C-Pop,” the Christian pop-culture podcast. “Most documentaries piece together the past, what already happened. And what we do is we actually go out and film God doing things as it’s happening.”

Wilson’s films capture sickness leaving the body, pain dissipating, salvation coming.

But how did he get his start? What’s next? Listen to the interview (at minute 23) to find out.

Christian singer Lauren Daigle performed her worshipful single “You Say” on ABC’s Good Morning America last week.

The appearance was one of her first in weeks after she told a radio host she didn’t know if homosexuality was a sin and that if people were curious, they should read the Bible.

Daigle has been nominated for two Grammy awards this year, one for her album Look Up, Child, and another for the song she sang on the hit morning show.

Watch and worship.

By declaring Dec. 25 a national holiday to celebrate the birth of Christ, the Iraqi government opened a prophetic window, evangelist Robby Dawkins says.

Dawkins, who frequently travels to Iraq, Iran and other Middle Eastern/Central Asian nations, says his friends on the ground say God is moving in miraculous ways, especially since the rise and fall of the Islamic State.

But that’s just the beginning.

So much supernatural activity, from dreams and visions to prophecies, has Dawkins prepping to open a school of supernatural ministry in the area to train up the underground church and to teach them the tools of prophetic, healing, deliverance, raising the dead and seeing God’s power.

Listen to the podcast for this miraculous story, and check out the photos from Dawkins’ time overseas.