One of Jezebel’s most prolific weapons against God’s children is the spirit of fear. Dr. Michael Brown says Jezebel is hammering believers with it these days to keep them afraid of the future and prevent them from doing the work God has ordained for them.

But with the Word of God as our fiercest weapon, Brown says Christians can fight back and put Jezebel in her place—defeat.

“We know that Jezebel paralyzes with fear,” Brown told Dr. Steve Greene on a recent episode of “Greenelines” on the Charisma Podcast Network. “So we analyze the nature of fear. We analyze how fear is about something bad that is going to happen in the future. It’s intimidating when people have panic attacks that they can’t get out of.

“The first thing we do is teach people to overcome the spirit of fear by the spirit of faith—to meditate on God’s Word, His promises, and not to fear because He is with us. Do that until those things become spiritually reality to us.

“In that reality, we can cast fear down. And then, we have to deal with sin in our own lives. We give practical guidelines to help do that. … You must clean house first and focus on how you can defeat Jezebel in your personal life and discover all of the promises God has given you.”

For more of how you can defeat Jezebel every day, listen to this podcast.

There are many women in Scripture with whom I have felt a special kinship. Ruth is one of those women.

As I study her amazing, yet quiet story, I realize that the lives of women have not changed that much in the 3,000 years since the resilient and remarkable Ruth walked upon planet Earth.

Ruth experienced trauma and heartbreak when her husband died at a very young age. Ruth was a childless widow who was living in a time of great famine. She was alone, with no hope for a vibrant future, and suffered hunger pangs every day.

Have you seen yourself in Ruth’s story yet? Has loneliness become your best, and perhaps your only, friend? Has your future been stolen from you? Perhaps you are hungry for more of life but are not sure where to find it.

Ruth traveled with her mother-in-law along the dusty road to Bethlehem. The name “Bethlehem” means “the house of bread.” The importance of this vivid symbolism cannot be understated. You need bread more than you need a husband, children or a future! You need the bread of the Word of God—you need His sustenance and His provision when life has left you void of significance. You must go where the bread is—and the bread is tasted in the Word of God!

Like Ruth, I must follow where the bread of His Word leads me. And, just as Ruth did, I must declare His lordship in my life.

“Your God will be my God,” were the words the young widow spoke to her mother-in-law, Naomi. With those six words alone, Ruth established her faith. As you are dealing with raw discouragement and relentless suffering, I hope that you mimic the choices that Ruth made: pursue the bread of the Word and declare His lordship in your life.

Perhaps you know the rest of Ruth’s story—she gathered grain in the fields of Boaz who was a relative of her husband’s family. Boaz took note of Ruth and reached out to her in kindness and in provision. Boaz has been known through history as the “kinsman redeemer” of Ruth the Moabitess. He married her, provided for her and gave her a future in his family. Boaz and Ruth had a son together, Obed, who is in the lineage of Jesus Christ.

Never underestimate the power of reading the bread of Life, which is the Word of God. Never lose sight of the power that is yours when you declare the lordship of Jesus Christ in spite of pain and disappointment. The Lord will provide for you just as He did for Ruth. Your future will go from non-existent to significant when you eat of the Word and use your tongue to honor Him.

You, too, have a kinsman Redeemer, and His name is Jesus. Jesus stepped in and rescued you when you were lonely, hungry and hopeless. He has given you a hope and a future that is so rare and so beautiful that it will change the generations of your family to come.

Carol McLeod is a best-selling author and popular speaker at women’s conferences and retreats, where she teaches the Word of God with great joy and enthusiasm. Carol encourages and empowers women with passionate and practical biblical messages mixed with her own special brand of hope and humor. She is the author of several books, including StormProof, Guide Your Mind, Guard Your Heart and Grace Your Tongue and Pass the Joy, Please!

If you’re a believer who wants to influence your culture, then evangelist and author Larry Tomczak encourages you to take the Bullseye Challenge. For 15 minutes a day for 30 days, Christ followers can become informed and confidently address the hot-button topics of today’s society with others God’s way.

Through the Bullseye Challenge, Tomczak, in ministry for more than 40 years, explains how to engage in conversations with graciousness and respect. Tomczak was the man that both Ellen DeGeneres and CNN’s Anderson Cooper called out on national TV for boldly expressing his views on traditional marriage.

“Believers should make sure they consecrate themselves in these turbulent, confusing times to biblical faithfulness so that they will not compromise themselves,” Tomczak told Dr. Steve Greene on a recent episode of “Greenelines” on the Charisma Podcast Network. “If you do that, you will not lack courage. You will be bold for Christ.

“If you want to help others and inspire them, take this challenge. When engaging culture, don’t shrink back. Take steps to be wise and discerning Be gracious when you talk to people, but you’ve got to be prepared. Watch a video on a topic, whether it’s gay marriage, marijuana legalization, immigration or transgenderism. Take the time to reflect and pray before you go out. It will change your life and how you talk to people.”

For more about the Bullseye Challenge, listen to this podcast.

With kingdom leaders like Josh Harris and Marty Sampson either walking away from or questioning their Christian faith in recent weeks, master’s-level practitioner Tracy Daniels warns others that the enemy is accelerating his attack on their ministry through their mental health.

Depression, anxiety and what Daniels calls “pastoral PTSD” have become all too common for kingdom leaders. But they can fight back.

“I just want to encourage people in this situation, with all of the shootings that are happening and the attack on mental health, that God is still in control,” Daniels told Dr. Steve Greene on a recent episode of “Greenelines” on the Charisma Podcast Network. “We all know that it’s a major spiritual battle. We’ve just got to begin to really tap into the things of God and allow God to guide some of us leaders. Some try to do it on their own.

“My advice to them is, don’t hold it in. Try to pray it out. Pastors, please seek professional help with a Christian counselor and follow up with your doctor. Some things we think that fall into line medically are actually about your mental health. So, please seek help, whether it’s with a doctor or with a counselor.

“We have to begin to identify the conflict we have and learn how to negotiate it constantly. We really have to begin to learn how to stay out of situations where we’re blaming other people for the way we are and understand the conflict that is going on within us.”

For more on how you can fight to preserve your mental health, listen to the podcasts.

She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying, and she felt sorry for him. “This is one of the Hebrew babies,” she said (Ex. 2:6).

Our Scripture today relates to the familiar story of Moses’ birth. As most of us know, the birth and survival of Moses was no easy thing. Pharaoh had decreed that every Hebrew baby boy be drowned in the Nile.

God caused a miracle (the first of many), and Moses was born three months early. This bought his parents some time, and they were able to hide Moses for three months before the time of his arrival was expected. At that point, Moses’ parents realized that they had to let him go and rely on the grace of God. They placed him in a basket, set it on the Nile River and prayed for the best.

God arranged that just as the basket was floating on the river, Pharaoh’s daughter went down to the Nile for a bath. Now follow closely. She saw the basket, “She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying, and she felt sorry for him. ‘This is one of the Hebrew babies,’ she said” (Ex. 2:7, NIV).

The Jewish sages ask two questions: First, how did Pharaoh’s daughter know that the baby was a Hebrew? Secondly, in the original Hebrew, the verse first refers to a “baby boy” in the basket, but then refers to a “youth” who is crying. Why is Moses first called a baby, but then a child?

The answer given in the Jewish tradition is that the verse is speaking about two different boys. Pharaoh’s daughter opened the basket and saw baby Moses. Then she saw a child—Aaron, the brother of Moses—and he was crying. At that moment, she realized that Aaron was the baby’s brother, and understood that this was a Hebrew baby in danger of death. It was Aaron’s cries that pried open her heart and caused her to have compassion on Moses and save him.

The message of this teaching is that when we cry for ourselves, we have a limited effect. But when we cry for one another, we have a greater effect and can evoke miraculous salvation.

Today, I think that this message takes on an even greater meaning. When Jews cry for themselves, the world hardly listens. Yet again, Jews are slaughtered. Yet again, Jews are persecuted. The world yawns and moves on.

But when our Christian brothers and sisters cry out to the world on our behalf, suddenly, the world listens. We need your cries today more than ever. Cry out for your Jewish brothers and sisters who face starvation, persecution and terror.

Tear open the heart of an indifferent world. Evoke their compassion, encourage their support and help lead Israel to salvation.

Yael Eckstein is president of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, which is headquartered in Chicago and Jerusalem.

As a man on fire for God, John Burton was shocked when the Lord revealed to him that he was praying the wrong way. This insight took the preacher and revivalist by complete surprise.

After all, Burton was doing the work for which God had ordained him and even considered himself a prayer warrior. But he wasn’t about to argue with the Creator.

“I was just crying out for finances, crying out for needs to be met and for the church to be full and passionate,” Burton told Dr. Steve Greene on a recent episode of “Greenelines” on the Charisma Podcast Network. “He told me to stop, and I asked Him why, because I was on fire praying, crying out.

“He said to me, ‘You don’t believe My Word. If you believed My Word, you wouldn’t be crying out for things that I’ve already promised. I’ve already promised to meet your needs, so you don’t need to be begging Me for something I’ve already resolved. You need to start believing and declaring and decreeing.

“That’s when I changed. I shifted from someone who was simply petitioning to God to someone who was confident in what He’s already settled, and confident in who He is and confident about what He thinks of me. All of a sudden, I had this anointing and this function on me in this fire. Now I can decree and declare, and I can move the enemy out of the way. When that shift happened, we saw dramatic miracles begin to happen.”

For more about revelation-driven prayer with John Burton, listen to the podcast.

What would life be like without God’s Word in our hands? Filmmaker M.D. Perkins says Christians should ponder the possibility. It could change their perspective and their dedication to Christ.

In his documentary The God Who Speaks, Perkins contemplates the scenario. With Christian persecution on the rise around the world, what would it be like if the Bible were outlawed?

“Many believers take the Bible for granted,” Perkins told Dr. Steve Greene on a recent episode of “Greenelines” on the Charisma Podcast Network. “I know there were days where I would look over and realize that I had not picked up my Bible today. I would realize that I hadn’t sat down with God’s Word.

“Sometimes we can get so carried away with the duties the duties and activities of the Christian life and Christian ministry that sometimes we forget the source of life right there, Christ Himself, and what we have in the Word. We’re talking about how rich and complex and filling God’s Word is for us. Why would we take that for granted?

“People can have faith in their cars and their watches and in the fact that the sun is behind the clouds. But ask them to have faith in a story that’s told and retold so well decade after decade … I don’t know of another book that has changed lives like that one.”

For more about M.D. Perkins’ documentary, listen to the podcast.

Raising kids is a constant negotiation. We want them to be independent, to build meaningful friendships and to become their own person. And yet, a healthy family bond is essential to the well-being and flourishing of our children from birth through adulthood.

Unfortunately, even the most well-meaning parents often sabotage these relationships by doing a few common, but unhelpful things. Here are three:

1. Equating “busy” with “healthy.” We often buy the lie that what our kids need is to be kept busy so they don’t get in trouble, or so they can make friends or so they feel like their lives have meaning. The problem is this is a myth. In reality, the dramatic increase in children’s activity and the subsequent loss of free time has served to lessen creativity and increase anxiety and depression in kids.

More to the point of this article, it makes it virtually impossible for the typical parent to have more than a passing conversation with their child each day. And that “passing” conversation is typically punctuated with the instructions, “Take the earbuds out so you can hear me.”

If we’re going to build lasting family bonds, we must be willing to say no to the tyranny of busy-ness. You can’t create family bonds if you don’t carve out time. One of the rules my wife and I made early on with our kids was that they could not participate in more than one extracurricular activity per season. We’ve had countless fights about this, but in the end, we’re really grateful for that rule. It’s allowed us to get pretty consistent time to connect as a family each night, even though some nights, that may only be 15 minutes.

2. Allowing technology to win. Speaking of “earbuds,” that’s a real problem in our house. Our kids love music and often listen to different types of music. This leads to four kids sitting in the same room with earbuds in while doing their homework. They might as well be in separate time zones. My wife recently came up with the rule that no one can have earbuds in while at home. Zero percent of the time. Needless to say, this was not greeted with fanfare. However, in the weeks since we’ve noticed a much different atmosphere. Conversation flows more freely. Siblings acknowledge one another—you know, like actual people.

Many of us feel helpless to take a stand against the onslaught of technology: smartphones, gaming, social media; there is so much vying for our kid’s attention that is way more interesting than we are. But if we want to build meaningful family bonds, we’ve got to have space to connect that is unimpeded by the escape of a screen. Set up rules about when screens get put away. Refuse to allow screens at the dinner table (you too, Dad). Set limits for usage (most smartphones have functions that allow you to limit screen time automatically). These rules will not be fun to implement (your kids will not cheer your efforts) but it will be worth it.

3. Taking life too seriously. Sometimes it takes science a while to catch up to what we know intuitively. For example, did you realize that laughing with someone increases the likelihood that you’ll form meaningful bonds? Laughing releases endorphins, which promote social bonding. So laugh with your wife and kids. If your kids are young have tickle fights (17-year-olds tend to be weird about that). Tell jokes. Watch movies that make all of you laugh. Laugh at yourself when you make mistakes. Listen to comedians or funny audiobooks while driving.

As much as possible, create an environment in which your family can have fun together. Obviously, life can’t be one big laugh-fest. But figuring out how to make it a regular part of your family’s life together will pay big dividends in creating lasting bonds.

Sound off: What have you done lately to create family bonds? {eoa}

Timothy Diehl is a husband, father, pastor, basketball fan, U2 junkie and theology nerd who loves helping people find meaning in life. He’s done stints as a high school teacher, campus minister and now serves as a pastor with a bunch of folks who are trying to pursue authentic faith and life together outside of Reading, Pennsylvania.

For the original article, visit allprodad.com.

Periodically, my wife and I will hide little love notes in various places around our house, such as in our cars. Sometimes, I would drop one in her purse and when I traveled, she would often put one in my suitcase.

Today, through technology, we surprise text each other. There is something special about finding an unexpected reminder of our love for each other.

While my wife and I make it a point, even after almost 38) years of marriage, to tell each other “I love you” every day. There is a special blessing when those words come in unexpected ways and places.

The Bible, which is G-D’s love letter to His bride, is filled with Him saying “I love you” in plain and open text. But there are also many, many examples of where G-D has hidden an “I love you” message within the words. In the same way, finding hidden love notes reaches a special place in our hearts. G-D’s hidden love notes can do the same thing.

In my daily Bible reading, as I read through the verses, I always look for these little “I love you” messages. They are often hidden right in front of us, but we miss them. One such example of a love note is found in the very first verse of Deuteronomy:

“These are the words that Moses spoke to all Israel across the Jordan—in the wilderness, in the Arabah opposite Suph, between Paran and Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth and Di-Zahab” (Deut. 1:1)

You might be asking, “Where is the love note?” Think about the context of this verse. The people of Israel are about to enter the promised land after 40 years in the wilderness. They had to wait until an entire generation had passed away because of their rebellion against G-D.

But it wasn’t just the rebellion of the 10 spies that we read about. Over and over, G-D’s loved ones rebelled, rejected and complained about their husband (G-D), even as they prepared to enter into the promised land. With one word, G-D reminded them that His covenant love for them was absolute. As Moses is about to detail their history of rebellion through their journey, G-D says “You’re all still Israel, My beloved.”

The very first word reminds the entire nation that G-D still loves them and His covenant with them is unbreakable. These words travel through time to us today. People, who are like Israel of old, at times walk in rebellion, rejection and complaining. Yet the first verse of Deuteronomy speaks from G-D’s heart to our heart: “I love you, My bride, and My covenant love is unbreakable.”

Eric Tokajer is author of With Me in Paradise, Transient Singularity, OY! How Did I Get Here?: Thirty-One Things I Wish Someone Had Told Me Before Entering Ministry, #ManWisdom: With Eric Tokajer, Jesus Is to Christianity as Pasta Is to Italians, and Galatians in Context.

As the mother of three sons, Priscilla Shirer knows the lies that culture and social media can unload on young people today. But as a preacher, an author and a movie star, she also knows how crucial it is to make sure they and others know where their real identity lies.

“Remember that you are not your past. You are not your behavior,” Shirer told Dr. Steve Greene on a recent episode of “Greenelines” on the Charisma Podcast Network. “You are not defined by how other people have labeled who you are. You are exactly who God says you are. I would encourage you to go straight to God’s Word. …

“Any system or any person that seeks to diminish the value of who I am is in opposition to the truth of God. I’m being recreated in the image of Christ Jesus; there is inherent value in my identity as a daughter of God. And, if we all start living the truth instead of the lies of the enemy, it will change the course of your life. So instead of making decisions out of fear and insecurity, I start making decisions from truth. And the truth is, I’m chosen; I’m forgiven; I am known; and I am already accepted.”

Shirer says if you must write those truths down to remember them, do it.

“Go through and really write down everything that God’s Word says you to be true about you,” she says. “And then post it somewhere where you’re going to see it every single day. I’ve done this for myself. And I’ve done it for my sons. I literally have it written down.

“Either I say it over them, or I make them say it out loud over themselves as a constant reminder to reframe your entire mindset and perspective and realign it to the truth of who God says you are. Then start making choices from that place of truth. Choose your relationships from that place of truth rather than letting the lies of the enemy get a word in edgewise.”

For more of Dr. Greene’s interview with Priscilla Shirer, listen to the podcast.