Digital magazines are gaining momentum in the iPad age. Now, Charisma
Media is delivering news, information and inspiration to Spirit-filled
believers through the Charisma Media iPad app.

The Charisma Media iPad app is the fruit of nearly two years of
research, development and approval processes with Apple. With the launch
of the new app, Charisma Media’s vision for reaching the nations for
Christ through advanced technology charges ahead on yet another
platform. Readers can download the iPad app free and subscribe to
Charisma Digital to read Charisma anywhere they go.

“When I launched Charisma magazine 30 years ago, I never
dreamed I’d one day read it on a large-screen mobile device like the
iPad,” says Steve Strang, founder and CEO of Charisma Media. “We’ve
always been at the forefront of Christian movements with our editorial
perspective. With Charisma Digital, we’re on the cutting-edge of Christian media delivery as more consumers read their news on portable devices.”

For readers, this new digital platform offers an opportunity to experience Charisma
magazine on a whole new level. Readers can navigate through interactive
pages loaded with rich media and experience the convenience of Charisma
on the world’s most popular tablet device. A new report from the The
Magazine Publisher’s Association (MPA) reveals that tablet owners are
reading more thanks to the rise of digital magazines. In fact, 66
percent of people who read magazines on tablet devices and e-readers
expect to spend more time with digital issues in 2012—and 90 percent say
they are reading as much, if not more, magazine content since buying a
tablet.

“Interactive digital magazines like Charisma Digital are
ideal for tablets and e-reader devices—devices on which the next
generation of charismatic Christians are consuming media,” says Marcus
Yoars, editor of Charisma magazine. “With Charisma Digital,
you can tap into Spirit-filled news, inspiring features and teaching
articles that help equip you to make a difference in your world.”

For advertisers, Charisma Digital presents a new opportunity
to reach a growing market of savvy consumers. The MPA survey reveals
that 59 percent of consumers want to buy directly from advertisements
and 79 percent say they want the ability to purchase products and
services directly from editorial features. Nearly 75 percent of those
surveyed say they typically engage with digital magazine ads.

“Digital magazines are taking the medium to the next level,” says
Christopher Kevorkian, executive vice president of Digital at the MPA.
“While various research has long proved that print magazines drive
purchase behavior, digital magazines hold the promise of creating a
direct link between purchase intent and actual transaction. The study
proves that consumers look to magazine media to create that
opportunity.”

How to get Charisma on your iPad:

1. Subscribe to Charisma Digital online at and create your username and password for full access to Charisma Digital.*
2. Open the iPad Newsstand store.
3. Search for “Charisma” or “Charisma Media.”
4. Download the free Charisma Media app (Internet connection and iTunes account required).
5. Sign in with your Charisma Digital username/password and download individual issues, with more added every two weeks.

Click here to get started.

*By subscribing through iTunes, users currently can’t access all issues of Charisma Digital. (This will be fixed shortly.)

No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. —1 Corinthians 10:13

It is said of Jesus that He “was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil” (Matt. 4:1). It seems that, although the devil can do the direct tempting, it is the Spirit who may lead us into a place where the devil can do his work.

Or take the example of Job.

The Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job?” (Job 1:8).

God earmarked Job for greater blessing. He already was greatly blessed, but God wanted to bless him more. You may think, Well, why didn’t God just go on and do it? I don’t know. For reasons I don’t understand, God tests us. He tested Job and tested him to the hilt. Maybe He’s doing that with you.

Now there are, in fact, two origins of temptation. One is the flesh; the other is the devil. Let’s remember, when it comes to the flesh, these words of James: “When tempted, no one should say, ‘God is tempting me'” (James 1:13). James said this because, when we  are tempted, it often seems as if God is involved. Temptation comes so easily to us. It is so natural, so painless, that even the most mature people may think to themselves, God is actually in this, when in fact it is the flesh deceiving us every time.

What might help us to resist temptation? Three suggestions:

1. Remember that temptation is a test from God, and that any temptation is resistible. (See 1 Corinthians 10:13.)

2. Imagine how you’re going to feel if you don’t give in to it, and how you’re going to feel if you do.

3. Remember that God is looking for those He can trust.

Excerpted from When God Shows Up (Renew Books, 1998).

And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee. —Genesis 17:7

We live in a time when a person’s word means nothing. Marriages are dissolved daily with no regard to the vows of “till death we do part,” and our courts are flooded with lawsuits.

It has not always been this way. In biblical times a covenant, sealed in blood, was a promise of enduring responsibility—never entered into lightly and never disregarded.

This is the kind of relationship we have with God. The entire Bible is a legal contract signed in Jesus’ blood! When God said, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee” (Hebrews 13:5), He did not add “maybe” or “if.” In covenant with Him, we possess His armor, His weapons, His power, and His victory!

This is the unchangeable fact of His absolute faithfulness! Study the promises of God in the light of His blood covenant and learn how sure and secure the Rock is on which you stand.

Almighty God, You are my hope, fortress, and confidence.
Thank You for your blood covenant that seals my
future forever. I will trust You in every decision.
I will listen to and obey Your voice,
for You alone are faithful. Amen.

With just a week to go before the Iowa caucus, several Republican presidential candidates are making a last minute push for votes.

On Tuesday, Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., Texas Gov. Rick Perry and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich are hitting the road with bus tours across the state.

Each one is fighting to prove to voters that they are a more conservative alternative to former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney.

But some analysts say even with the efforts of candidates like Bachmann and Perry with just seven days left, the race will be between Romney, Gingrich and Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas.

“There’s really three primaries going on here,” former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania told reporters in Adel, where he went hunting for pheasant and quail.

“There’s the Libertarian primary, which Ron Paul is going to win. Then you’ve got the moderate primary, which Gingrich and Romney are scrumming for. And you’ve got three folks who are running as strong conservatives,” Santorum said, including himself with Bachmann and Perry among the conservatives.

Still, recent polls show that many Iowa Republicans remain undecided.

If parents and student leaders think their precious teens aren’t sending naked pictures of themselves to their boyfriends and girlfriends, they need to think again. It’s happening.

Students (teens age 12-17) are using their mobile phones as portable pornography devices.

There’s a name for this: sexting. It’s defined as sending sexually suggestive messages or photos via text messaging on mobile phones.

Sexting went mainstream in June when the national news outlets reported New York Representative Anthony D. Weiner sent suggestive photographs of himself to women he met over the Internet. Some of them returned the “favor,” setting off a firestorm of controversy. Calls for his resignation from Congress came from both Democrats and Republicans.

While Weiner was adamant that he would not resign his seat, claiming he had broken no laws, pressure from his Democratic colleagues led to his June 16 resignation.

This was an adult who certainly should use better judgment, but teens need a good dose of judgment as well. They are old enough to know better, but sadly, studies show they aren’t doing better.

A survey conducted by The Pew Internet and American Life Project in 2009 including only minors (age 12-17) said 4 percent of mobile phone-owning teens say they have sent sexually suggestive nude or nearly nude images or videos of themselves to someone else via text message, and 15 percent have received such messages.

The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy* and * commissioned a survey of teenagers age 13-19 to explore electronic activity in 2008. (Note this study was more than three years ago.)

This survey said that 22 percent of girls and 18 percent of boys have sent nude or seminude pictures or videos of themselves via mobile phone. The survey also said that 37 percent of girls and 40 percent of boys said they had sent sexually suggestive messages to someone.

Mandy Crow, editor of EC, a student devotional magazine published by LifeWay, said church kids are not immune.

“We talk with teens and student leaders often,” she said. “We hear this everywhere. It’s happening with church kids just like unchurched kids.

“They seem to think it’s flirty or funny,” Crow said. “They just don’t see the long-term consequences.”

A panel of girls’ ministry leaders talked about sexting during a large group session at the 2011 Girls’ Ministry Forum. LifeWay’s Girls Ministry Director Pam Gibbs acknowledged it’s a conversation church leaders must be involved in.

“These young girls are sometimes naive,” Gibbs said. “Often, they are good kids and just want to be popular. They don’t get it that this is something that can follow them for the rest of their lives.”

The panel agreed that sexting is happening with church kids. It often comes out of peer pressure or boyfriend/girlfriend insistence.

According to the NCPTUP study (relating to those who admitted to having sent or posted sexually suggestive content):

Seventy-one percent of teenage girls and 67 percent of teenage guys who have sent or posted sexually suggestive content say they have sent or posted this content to a boyfriend or girlfriend.

Twenty-one percent of teenage girls and 39 percent of teenage boys say they have sent such content to someone they wanted to date or “hook up with” (euphemism for casual sexual encounter).

Forty-four percent of both teenage girls and teenage boys say it is common for sexually suggestive text messages to be shared with people other than the intended recipient.

Thirty-six percent of teenage girls and 39 percent of teenage boys say it is common for nude or seminude photos to be shared with people other than the intended recipient.

MTV,* a television network known for programming related to youth culture, aired “Sexting In America: When Privates Go Public.”

Two young adults were profiled. At the time of the program, one was a 19-year-old girl who, at age 16, sent a nude photograph of herself to an ex-boyfriend who said he would get back together with her if she would send it. The boy instead sent the photo to everybody in his contact list and soon her photo was all over the school.

She said she not only felt betrayed, but experienced “brutal and terrible harassment” from classmates that included vulgar name-calling.

A young man, 20 when the program was made, received naked pictures from his girlfriend when he was 17. They had a fight and he retaliated by calling up the picture on his cell phone and hitting the “send all” on his contact list. The girl’s picture went out to more than 70 people, including friends, teachers, parents and grandparents.

But by that time, he’d had his 18th birthday—still in high school but legally an adult. He was arrested for distributing child pornography—she was still 17—and put on five years’ probation. In addition, he was required to register on the public sex offender list.

He said he was kicked out of college, can’t find a job and can’t live with his dad because his dad’s house is near a school. He is required to attend a class for sex offenders, where, as he said, he’s sitting in a room with “perverts and rapists.”

Unless his attorney is successful in getting him taken off the list, he could remain on the sex offender list until he is in his 40s.

Depending on state laws, being on a sex offender list places limits on where a person can live and with whom they can associate. It also can limit the activities they can legally do.

These two young adults profiled on the MTV program didn’t claim to be Christians or profess involvement in a church, but “good church kids” are not immune to the pressure of sexting.

Crow said it’s important that student leaders and parents be proactive in dealing with sexting.

“Bottom line, it’s child pornography,” she said.

“Student leaders need to help parents know what to do and how to talk to their teenagers about sexting,” she said. “Parents need to be empowered to speak out. The issue isn’t going away.”

While laws vary from state to state, the person creating and sending the image is possibly looking at charges of child pornography and sexual exploitation of a minor. Being convicted of those charges can carry up to 20 years in prison.

While almost two dozen states are considering changes to laws that would separate sexting from the same category as child pornography, that hasn’t happened yet.

Crow said, “Helping students understand that once they hit ‘send’ they have lost all control of where that photo or video goes is a place to begin the conversation.”

Does a belief in God confer any health benefits? With the help of a large Norwegian longitudinal health study called HUNT, researchers from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) were able to find a clear relationship between time spent in church and lower blood pressure in both women and men.


“We found that the more often HUNT participants went to church, the lower their blood pressure, even when we controlled for a number of other possible explanatory factors,” says Torgeir Sørensen, a PhD candidate from the School of Theology and Religious Psychology Centre at Sykehuset Innlandet (Inland Hospital).


“This is the first study of its kind in Scandinavia. Previous research from the United States has shown that there is a possible link between people who attend church and blood pressure. However, large religious and cultural differences between the U.S. and Norway make it difficult to transfer these findings to the Norwegian context,” says Sørensen.



About 90 percent of the population of the county of Nord-Trøndelag, where the HUNT study was conducted, are members of the Norwegian state church, while Americans show a much broader distribution in their religious and ethical preferences.


“About 40 percent of the U.S. population goes to church on a weekly basis, while the corresponding figure in Nord-Trøndelag County is 4 percent. For that reason, we did not expect to find any correlation between going to church and blood pressure in Nord-Trøndelag. Our findings, however, are almost identical to those previously reported from the United States. We were really surprised,” Sørensen said.


“Since this is a cross-sectional study, it is not possible to say whether it was a health condition that affected the participants’ religious activity, or whether it was the religious activity that affected the state of participants’ health,” says Professor Jostein Holmen from NTNU’s Faculty of Medicine, and one of the authors of the study. A cross-sectional study says something about a group of people at a given time, but can say nothing about causation.



“In order to determine what causes the effect, we need new studies that look at the same people at different times,” says Holmen.



For this study, church attendance was selected as a variable to represent religious activity, and blood pressure was selected as a variable that gives an indication of overall health with respect to a variety of diseases and conditions. The study found that the variable used to measure religious activities (church time) had a significant relationship to the variable used to measure health (blood pressure). In other words, those who were religiously active were healthier than those who were not religiously active.



“The study of the relationship between religion and health has rarely focused on other religions, such as Judaism and Islam. It is therefore difficult to say anything about whether or not this same association can be found in these communities,” says Sørensen.



The residents of Nord-Trøndelag County have participated in three HUNT surveys since 1984. These studies have not only examined risk factors for disease and death, but have also evaluated factors that might contribute to good health. The second survey, HUNT 2, which was conducted in 1995-97, included questions about the participant’s sense of humor in the overall questionnaire. The HUNT 3 study (2006-08) included questions about participation in cultural activities and religious beliefs in the questionnaire that was used as a part of the survey.

All told, the HUNT databases contain information about approximately 120,000 people, and make it possible to integrate family data and individual data that then can be linked to Norway’s national health registries.



“These factors have been poorly investigated in previous studies of different populations. The research into lifestyle and health issues mainly comes from the United States, while information from Europe and Scandinavia is very limited,” says Holmen, who was one of the initiators of the first HUNT study in the early 1980s.

Earlier HUNT studies have shown a positive correlation between humor and good health, and participation in different cultural activities and good health.


”It would appear that the data we have been recording in the HUNT studies about religious beliefs is actually relevant to your health, and this is interesting in itself,” Holmen says. “The fact that churchgoers have lower blood pressure encourages us to continue to study this issue. We’re just in the start-up phase of an exciting research area in Norway.”


Click below to find out a few reasons why you should attend seminary.

Read an excerpt from Christian relationship counselor
Doug Weiss’s book 30-Day Marriage Makeover as he shares what can cause a couple to rekindle the love in their relationship.

Click here to read an excerpt from the book and here to purchase 30-Day Marriage Makeover.

When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me. —John 15:26

Let me ask you a question: How would you feel if after worshiping your God for so many years, you discovered that there really is one who is greater? What would you do? Maybe you would say, “Well, I wouldn’t want to give up God. I have come to know Him real well.” Yet surely you want to worship the Most High God. Would you keep on worshiping Him? Never.

If I were to discover that there is one greater than who I thought was the greatest, I would stop praying, and I would reassess my ways, my worship, my allegiance, and my confession. Why? Because I want to locate not only the name than which no greater can be conceived, but also the one who is greater and worship Him. I only want to worship Him who is the First and the Last.

Whenever we make the claim that we worship the Most High, the one than which there is no greater, someone is bound to ask us, “How can you be sure?” The answer to that is the Holy Spirit. No man can say that Jesus is Lord but by the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 12:3). It’s easy to get a person to repeat a prayer, but to really believe that Jesus, who was born of a virgin, lived, died on a cross, arose from the dead, and who is the One who causes to be, cannot be done unless the Holy Spirit conveys it to you.

Indeed, the Holy Spirit authenticates not only the truth but also gives an assurance by which you know you have it right. In His strength you can face a thousand worlds and a thousand devils. This is why you can stand before men. That witness of the Spirit is given so that you know the truth beyond any doubt. This is how you know that Jesus of Nazareth is Lord, the One who causes to be, even from everlasting to everlasting.

Excerpted from Meekness and Majesty (Christian Focus Publications Ltd., 1992, 2000).

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. —Luke 2:14

The angels celebrated the birth of the Prince of Peace by proclaiming peace on earth. They were not announcing conflict would cease and war would never again break out on the earth. They heralded the peace to be enjoyed by those who chose to live in harmony with God. The New American Standard Bible provides a more accurate translation of Luke 2:14: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased.”

The earth is plagued by conflict and strife as mankind lives apart from the peace that God alone can give. Peace on earth is a reality only among those who receive Him as Savior and Lord.

Peace is sent toward you. Joy is sent toward you. Blessing, health, happiness, and security are sent toward you. Do not let another year pass without positioning yourself to receive all He continually sends toward you. Order your steps of the Lord and walk in His perfect peace this coming year.

Jesus, I will live this New Year in Your blessing,
health, happiness, and security. I will seek to
be an instrument of Your peace in every
relationship I have. Amen.