Does God always answer our prayers? Jesus said, “”Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks, it will be opened” (Matt. 7:7-8). He even promised, “If you ask anything in My name, I will do it” (John 14:14). Jesus also gave a parable that had as its purpose that we should keep on praying and never give up (Luke 18:1-8).

The reason we should keep praying and never give up is because God doesn’t always answer our prayers immediately. What is more, we get to know God and His ways by spending more time with Him. One reason I believe God does not answer our prayers immediately is because He likes our company; if He answered all requests straightaway, we might not pray as much! But the implication in Jesus’ parable is that if we don’t give up, God will eventually come to our rescue.

There are those who would say, “God has not answered my prayer at all.” To which I would respond: So far as you can tell at the moment. I myself can testify: There are literally a dozen or more requests I have put to the throne of grace that have not been answered. There are also promises given to me—I believe from the Lord—that have not been fulfilled. And I am 82 as I write these lines.

But what about the Enochs, Noahs, Abrahams, Isaacs and Jacobs of this world? All those stalwarts in Hebrews 11—heaven’s hall of fame—could testify that it was not merely unanswered prayers in their situations; it was a case of God apparently not even keeping all His promises! Think about this verse—quoted above: “None of them received what had been promised” (Heb. 11:39b, NIV). Think about that verse for a moment. None of them received what had been promised. Yet they kept believing. But why? Were they dumb? Stupid? Whyever didn’t they give up?

It must be said at this stage we do not know all that was promised to each of them. We know vaguely and generally what was promised to some of them. But we don’t know everything. Based upon Hebrews 11:39, I would conclude that there were things promised to them that were not mentioned in the Old Testament books—as in Genesis, Exodus, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, and 1 and 2 Kings, for example. If we knew everything that had been promised to them, Hebrews 11:39 would make even more sense. But as this verse stands, we may safely conclude that all those described in Hebrews 11 had the following in common:

1. They did not receive everything that was promised to them.
2. What was promised to them was not so much for them after all, but “for us” so that “together with us” the promises they received would be perfected or fulfilled.

We might immediately think of Abraham, who was looking for a “city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God” (Heb. 11:10b). He did not see that city. We have not seen it either! But it is the new Jerusalem, which together we may all look forward to (Rev. 21 and 22)!

The people described in Hebrews 11 were not popular on earth. Many of them were hated. And they all had to suffer incalculable disappointment along the way. But during the whole time of their preparation and accomplishments—and lack of fulfillment, “none of them received what had been promised “—they were popular in heaven. They also had in common that they chose a road less traveled.

If it’s your heart’s desire to be popular in heaven, and I hope it is, I must caution you: God will not knock you down to make it happen! It is going to be true with you if you make a conscious decision to be popular in heaven. This does not mean you will be favored over the saints there; it is not like being popular in school when you are good-looking or excel in sports. It means that you are a beautiful fragrance that ascends to the place of the saints and the angels; that your choices on planet Earth cohere with the holy will of God being carried out in heaven. Right choices on earth fit well with the saints there.

It is like the petition in the Lord’s Prayer: “Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10b, MEV). In heaven, the will of God is being carried out perfectly; there is no rebellion, no rivalry among the saints or grumbling there. So when we make decisions on earth that fit in with what is pleasing to God, we are not only praying that the will of God be done in our lives but actually carrying out His will as it is in heaven. This makes us popular in the heavenlies!

Adapted from Popular in Heaven, Famous in Hell by R.T. Kendall (Charisma House, 2018). Your thoughts and behaviors can bring so much glory to God that you become a threat to evil, bringing glory to God and terrifying the enemy. This book helps you see how you can value your reputation with God above that with people. It’s a must-have for your life’s journey. To order your copy, click on this link.

Read articles like this one and other Spirit-led content in our new platform, CHARISMA PLUS.

This article is adapted from Popular in Heaven, Famous in Hell (Charisma House, 2018) by R.T. Kendall. Kendall was the pastor of Westminster Chapel in London, England, for 25 years. Born in Ashland, Kentucky, he was educated at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (.) and Oxford University (.). Kendall is the author of many books, including Total Forgiveness, Holy Fire, It Ain’t Over Till It’s Over, Prepare Your Heart for the Midnight Cry and Whatever Happened to the Gospel?

It took a poignant question from her pastor on Sunday morning to bring Billie Jauss to a disheartening revelation.

As a writer, speaker, wife of a Major League baseball coach and mother of three sons, Jauss got so caught up in her busy life that she forgot to make a deeper connection with Jesus every day. She read her Bible regularly, attended Bible studies and wrote articles for the benefit of believers, but it all left a void.

“I thought I was getting it all done and still staying close to the Lord until I sat in church and heard my pastor ask us, ‘What is God doing in and through you?'” Jauss told Dr. Steve Greene on a recent episode of “Greenelines” on the Charisma Podcast Network. “I felt like God smacked me upside the head. I mean, my spirit started squirming. I was doing all the good God things, but not doing God’s best things.”

In her book Making Room: Doing Less so God Can do More, Jauss chronicles her journey, which she calls “a spiritual rinsing with a power washer.” Here, God stripped distractions out of her life to make room for the Holy Spirit to move in her and do the work He intended for her.

“I always volunteered for a lot of things, things I shouldn’t have, because that’s how I got lost in doing just good things for God rather than waiting patiently and listening to Him, understanding His will and doing His best things,” Jauss says.

To find out more about Billie Jauss’ journey and how the lessons she learned can help you, listen to the podcast below.

Pastor John Hagee, founder of Christians United for Israel, issued an urgent prayer request after meeting with White House officials about their plan for Israel and the Middle East.

“Our topic of discussion was discussing the forthcoming peace plan concerning Israel. Israel and the Jewish people need our prayers and our advocacy like never before,” Hagee says in a video posted to the CUFI Twitter page. “The Bible gives the command, ‘For Zion’s sake, I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem’s sake, I will not keep my peace.’ I urge you tonight to pray for the peace of Jerusalem.”

Take a minute to listen to these important words from CUFI founder and Chairman @PastorJohnHagee , as he recaps todays trip to our nations capital.

— CUFI (@CUFI) March 8, 2019

Hagee was one of several major charismatic leaders in attendance, including Jentezen Franklin, Paula White and Lance Wallnau.

The Trump administration has a Middle East peace plan in the works, but will not reveal details until after the Israeli elections in April.

Jason Greenblatt, assistant to the president and special representative for international negotiations, has been heavily involved with the plan.

“We will be presenting a plan that is fair, realistic and implementable, and something that could improve lives for Israelis, Palestinians and the region dramatically,” Greenblatt said. “There will have to be compromises, of course — the two sides cannot reach a comprehensive peace agreement without compromises. Whether we can achieve this remains to be seen.”

Greenblatt told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that he hopes that people on the outside “will focus on the good, and see the possibilities of a brighter future. And if the two sides are willing to engage, they will be the ones to work through the tough issues.”

He continued: “We’ve developed an economic plan in addition to the political plan, which is essential to not only make the political plan successful, but to make sure they can have the kinds of lives both Israelis and Palestinians deserve. The economic plan is essential to any success of the political plan.”

Greenblatt also thanked charismatic leaders for their support.

Paula, as always, thank you very much for your help and support! We have very important work to do…

— Jason D. Greenblatt (@jdgreenblatt45) March 8, 2019

Thank you to all of you who joined me today for a thoughtful and important discussion!

— Jason D. Greenblatt (@jdgreenblatt45) March 8, 2019

{eoa}

Charisma News will launch the podcast series, “The Truth About Human Trafficking,” March 11. Visit for the episodes, which will feature survivors, prosecutors and abolitionists, and subscribe on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts to catch these powerful interviews.

Many years ago, the Lord told me that for me, self-promotion was illegal. I’ve wrestled with the implications of that word from Him ever since. For the sake of profitability for the publishers who produce my books, I’m required to do some promotion of my own, but there are limits. I’ve pondered what the apostle Paul had to say in Philippians 3:8 when he spoke of all that he had given up. He wrote: “Yes, certainly, I count everything as loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have forfeited the loss of all things and count them as rubbish that I may gain Christ.”

“Rubbish” in the original Greek is actually a rather strong profanity that illustrates the depth of what the apostle wanted to communicate about the wonder of really knowing and experiencing Jesus. For this, he would pay any price.

In light of this, and after suffering some very painful losses of my own, I’ve come to the following conclusion in the form of a question: How many of us in Christian leadership are focused on building our careers at the expense of a focus on intimacy with our Lord? How many of us raise and spend large sums of money to promote and build large ministry organizations with all the glitz and glamour, but fail to promote a very simple focus on Jesus? How accessible to the average believer have we actually made intimacy with Jesus? How many barriers have we unwittingly erected by serving the star system based on the image of the spiritual hero on the platform or the television show?

I saw in a vision during prayer the hand of God grasping the trunk of a tree and shaking it with such power that a rain of debris was falling from it. The Lord Himself interpreted it: “The day is coming when I will shake out the dead limbs and the dried fruit, leaders who lead where I have not led and prophets who speak the profane, watered-down messages of peace when there is no peace. I have hovered over My people lightly. I am about to descend in storm and great shaking. Some will fall. Others will rise. Some who were unknown are about to be known. I am making a tall tower to proclaim My truth. All men will see and be vexed at My outpouring of grace and love. You will be surprised at the fall of many, but I have preserved My servants for such a day as this. A day of release, a day of mercy. Where mercy exists, the power will fall, and My name will be known. The leadership tree is mine to prune, and a pruning is about to unfold, not in judgment, but for increase. Some have already faded away, but I am bringing more. More will fade away and more will come, rising in the brightness of My shining.”

A great shift is coming in the body of Christ, a shaking-out of the tree of leadership. Great ministries that have garnered the attention of the church and the world but failed in humble focus on the heart of Jesus, will fall in days to come. In their place will emerge a new breed immersed in the Father’s love, obsessed with Jesus. While they don’t seek or care for the spotlight or the stage, they will be placed in the spotlight and stand on the stage precisely because they neither seek nor need these things for themselves.

In Matthew 19:12 Jesus made a troubling statement. “For there are some eunuchs who have been so from birth, there are some eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are some eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. He who is able to receive this, let him receive it.” Ancient kings employed eunuchs to guard their harems because eunuchs would be immune to the temptation to attract the attention of the king’s women to themselves. They would guard the harem and keep it pure for the sake of the king. God seeks spiritual eunuchs in our day who will care for the bride of Christ for the sake of the King of kings, our groom, and will not sample her affections for themselves.

In the same way that the apostle Paul suffered the loss of all things for the sake of knowing Jesus and sharing in everything that Jesus is, God seeks now for humble and broken servants and mouthpieces who have nothing left to lose. They’ll be given great ministries with broad impact precisely because they don’t need great ministries with broad impact. Their singular desire will be to see the name of Jesus lifted up—not their own—and the bride of Christ in love with Him. These will deliver a pure word, and these will have God as their promoter. Our Lord is looking for friends, not handlers. The genuine, not the show. The heart, not the performance.

When we think of armor, Ephesians 6 often comes to mind. But what about Romans 13:12? The Modern English Version reveals, “The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore let us take off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.”

Could it be that our armor, as described in various versions of Ephesians 6:11, 13, is not full, whole or complete without the radiant light of Romans 13:12?

Jesus is the “light of the world,” and so are we (Matt. 5:14, John 8:12). There is no darkness in Him at all, and the enemy cannot comprehend light (John 1:5, 1 John 1:5). So when we don the wraparound light of Christ, the enemy is confounded (Ps. 104:2, Dan. 2:22).

What a position of strength!

Evil can’t get in (Ps. 91:7).

As armor, light is about stripping off our sinful flesh and putting on the sinless character of Jesus (light) for a faith-filled lifestyle of holy worship, honor and strength by grace.

That’s victorious living!

Ephesians 6:10 (TPT) reminds us,”Now my beloved ones, I have saved these most important truths for last: Be supernaturally infused with strength through your life-union with the Lord Jesus. Stand victorious with the force of his explosive power flowing in and through you.”

And 2 Corinthians 4:6 says, “For God, who said, ‘Let brilliant light shine out of darkness,’ is the one who has cascaded his light into us—the brilliant dawning light of the glorious knowledge of God as we gaze into the face of Jesus Christ.”

March 10, the beginning of daylight saving time this year, is a great time to remind us of these truths.

Consider these metaphors for daylight saving time, a kind of firstfruit shift, remembering 10 (John 10:10, Eph. 10; March 10) as the biblical number for restoration. (I believe this year can prove out in double-portion victory):

1. Light saves us.
2. Our flesh sacrifices sleep.
3. It forces us to wake up sooner.
4. This shift in time causes an inner reset.
5. Only a remnant of people is in the zone.
6. At the end of the day, we experience more light.

“Can you not discern this new day of destiny breaking forth around you? The early signs of my purposes and plans are bursting forth. The budding vines of new life are now blooming everywhere. The fragrance of their flowers whispers, ‘There is change in the air.’ Arise, my love, my beautiful companion, and run with me to the higher place. For now is the time to arise and come away with me” (Song 2:13).

God is an igniter of both consuming fire and glory. Because He loves us, His consuming fire burns off the dross in us that hinders our destiny with Him. His glorious and tangible presence visits us in worship to fill us and surround us with His peace, love and revelation. Both flames of passion can burn simultaneously during trials and tribulation.

He’s that smart.

He’s that powerful.

He’s that big.

The psalmist said, “The life that pleases me is a life lived in the gratitude of grace, always choosing to walk with me in what is right. This is the sacrifice I desire from you. If you do this, more of my salvation will unfold for you” (Ps. 50:23).

God is calling us to awaken and accelerate with Him at this time. Are you willing to sync with Him as your accelerant as He brings darkness to light (2 Sam. 22:29, Ps. 18:28)? Are you willing to trust Him and be clothed in His greater anointing (Gal. 3:27)?

With whom will you choose to align yourself? The Father of lights (James 1:17)? Or the father of lies (John 8:44)?

“The God of gods, the mighty Lord himself, has spoken! He shouts out over all the people of the earth in every brilliant sunrise and every beautiful sunset, saying, ‘Listen to me!’ God’s glory-light shines out of the Zion-realm with the radiance of perfect beauty” (Ps. 50:1-2).

Although longer days are upon us, our time on earth gets shorter every day. It’s time to step up, show gratitude to God and keep our promises to Him (Ps. 50:14). It’s time to come into more of His light of salvation—and sanctification, for His glory. {eoa}

Margaret D. Mitchell is the founder of God’s Love at Work, a 501(c)(3) charitable organization that champions Christian women and their outreach in the world with the love of Jesus Christ. Follow her revelatory writings at and .

This article originally appeared at .

I don’t bake much, but when I do, it’s usually at Christmas.

I follow one of my grandmother’s most cherished recipes: her incredible, red-velvet chocolate cake. It’s hard work to get it right, but it’s worth it because of all the memories that come flooding back with that first bite.

While baking makes many of us think of the past, girls trapped in Thailand’s sex industry are eager to learn to bake so they can look to a brighter future.

That’s one of the reasons World Help is working to build a baking school in Pattaya, Thailand. This school will give young women the opportunity to gain job skills they can use to find work outside of the red-light district.

They will be able to find employment in places like restaurants, cafes and hotel bakeries. But their future can’t start until this baking school is complete. That’s why we are asking people to join us in this initiative, especially today on International Women’s Day.

Poverty Robs Women of Choices

In Thailand, there is incredible cultural pressure for women to financially support their families, and that often includes extended family. One woman may be taking care of her mother, brother and grandmother as well as her own children. I’ve met girls who were trying to bear the financial responsibility for up to 11 people in their household.

This burden makes young women desperate for work, especially those who grew up in poor, rural villages and could not afford to go to school.

They are often lured to cities like Pattaya by the prospect of job opportunities. Once they arrive, however, they often find their lack of education leaves them with one choice — working in the city’s booming red-light district.

As our partner in Thailand often says, “Poverty is the pimp.”

Every night thousands of girls in Pattaya sell their bodies so their families can survive. They’ve always felt like the sex industry was their only option. Until now.

The opportunity to learn a valuable trade at the new baking school will open up a world of possibilities for them to pursue.

Baking Can Make All the Difference

Baking is cutting edge in Thailand. Most people don’t have ovens in their homes. But cafes are becoming trendy, and baked goods are in high demand, which means trained bakers are in high demand, too.

Sopa know this, and she is hoping that baking will soon become her ticket out of poverty.

Sopa, whose name I’ve changed to protect her privacy, never received an education. Her family struggled in a Thai slum, and she was expected to find a job in order to provide.

“In the poor areas,” our partner explained, “there are extremely poor schools. So even if someone has academic potential, they don’t understand or know it. [Sopa] is one of those.”

At age 17, Sopa—like so many girls who work in the bars—was out of options.

Then, she was introduced to a Freedom Home … and to baking. Sopa was able to live in a safe family environment away from the pressures of the slum and the red-light district. She is attending a good school and has even discovered an exciting new hobby.

One of the staff taught Sopa and the other girls at the home how to make banana muffins. Sopa fell in love with the process and with the way she could make people happy with her culinary creations. Every day, she comes home from school and asks if she can bake something.

Today Is the Perfect Day to Empower Women

I’ll never forget my first trip to Thailand to visit with girls trapped in sexual slavery. I was shocked to see women standing up in from of dozens of men with numbers pinned to their clothing. They were literally being sold like animals.

Sex shouldn’t be for sale, and neither should a girl’s self-worth.

The theme for this year’s International Women’s Day is #BalanceforBetter, fighting for gender balance in the workplace and beyond. I hope you will join us today in helping create a little more balance in our world. Even learning how to bake a red velvet chocolate cake can help a woman find freedom from the sex industry.

{eoa}

Charisma News will launch the podcast series, “The Truth About Human Trafficking,” March 11. Visit for the episodes, which will feature survivors, prosecutors and abolitionists, and subscribe on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts to catch these powerful interviews.

Noel Yeatts is the president of World Help, a Christian humanitarian organization. She’s an author, speaker and an advocate for social justice and humanitarian needs around the world. Find her at and on Twitter.

As Christians, most of us would love for God to like us, not just love us. Many of us have visited or been visited by family members. There are some family members you might like more than others due to their personality, choices or their history with you or other family members. The ones you like have favor with you, while the ones you like less—though you may love them deeply as well—you may say have less favor with you.

I will use an analogy that can develop your understanding of the favor of God. Many of us who marry and become parents along the way will understand this analogy. However, even if you are not a parent, I think this analogy will still work to help you understand this.

Suppose one of your children has a unique talent in sports, music, engineering—any unique talent. You take your child to a coach or leader in their area of talent. This person agrees your child is gifted or talented and sacrificially supports your child. Regardless of this person’s personality, characteristics or qualities, you are going to like or favor this person. This is really simple: When someone loves the one you love, you will favor them.

Look at this from another direction. Say it is the same child, and you take him or her to a coach or leader who excels in coaching or leading others in the area of your child’s talent or giftedness. But then the person chooses to put your child down and discourages them, even shames them. Now, how do you feel toward this person? To say the least, you would not like (favor) them very much, would you?

Notice that the second person did not love the one you loved, so you did not have favor for them. The first person loved the one you loved (your child), and they found favor with you.

Now, go back to you and your marriage. Suppose for a moment that God really likes/loves His child (your spouse). If you treat your spouse well by loving, serving and encouraging him or her, it is quite possible God could like you because of the way you serve your spouse. Conversely, if you treat your spouse (His child He deeply loves) poorly, discourage him or her or are consistently unkind to him or her, you might find yourself lacking in the favor of God in your life. I know God loves when I do laundry, dishes or otherwise help my wife, and when I encourage and praise her. I honestly believe I have many blessings in my life because of God’s favor on me because of how I love to bless His daughter, Lisa.

Having a Father-in-Law God is not a bad thing: It is actually a wonderful thing. He is omnipresent, so it does not matter what country or city I am in; He is with me. He is all-knowing, so He can constantly give me revelation and wisdom in how to better love and serve my wife. He is also amazingly gracious when I make mistakes with His daughter, my wife.

I hope you are encouraged by having God as your Father-in-law. Having His expectations, His empowerment to be a servant to my spouse and knowing one day I will face Him for my actions and behaviors is comforting and motivates me to love and serve Lisa all the days I am privileged to have her as my wife. {eoa}

Doug Weiss, Ph.D., is a nationally known author, speaker and licensed psychologist. He is the executive director of Heart to Heart Counseling Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and the author of several books including, Servant Marriage. You may contact Dr. Weiss via his website, or on his Facebook, by phone at 719-278-3708 or through email at heart2heart@.

Jim and Lori Bakker say that after the death of Billy Graham, his son Franklin Graham told them his death meant that all the demons of hell have been unleashed. The Bakkers made this claim on a recent episode of The Jim Bakker Show, during a segment about how Revelation 12 explains the current anti-preacher, anti-Israel sentiment gripping the world.

The Bakkers say that while they were at Billy Graham’s funeral, they went to Franklin Graham’s office with their son Ricky.

In the clip, Lori says, “He locked eyes with you, [Jim,] and you asked him, you said, ‘Franklin, what do you believe the passing of your daddy means?’ They call him Daddy, Franklin and his sisters and brother. And Franklin locked eyes with you, Jim—he didn’t look to me, he didn’t look to Ricky, he looked to you—and he said, ‘Jim, now is the time to stand. The passing of my father means all the demons of hell have been unleashed.'” (During the video, a slightly different quote by Graham is displayed, which says, “My father’s passing signals a change. The demons of hell are going to be unleashed.”)

Jim Bakker added, “[Franklin] said the devil is being cast into the world, and this is the time—Revelation 12. And this is what’s going on: good is evil, evil’s good.”

Watch the full clip here.

Today Captain Marvel—the first Marvel superhero movie centered on a woman—debuts in theaters, and it’s expected to make plenty of money at the box office. But is the latest superhero blockbuster safe for families? Plugged In breaks it down in this video review, noting that while the film features plenty of positives—like heroism and self-sacrifice—it also features downsides in the form of violence and language.

Imagine this scenario. A so-called pro-life activist shoots and kills an abortion doctor and then turns himself in. At once, the media comes to me and asks, “Will you denounce this act of violence?” I respond, “I denounce this act of violence, just as I denounce all acts of violence, including the violence of war and the violence perpetrated on babies by abortion doctors.”

Would you be satisfied? Or would that strike you as a real cop-out?

What if I had said, “As a pro-life leader, I categorically denounce this murderous, anti-life act. There is neither excuse nor justification for this, and it violates the very foundations on which our movement stands.”

Would that be satisfactory? I would think so.

In the same way, when a Palestinian terrorist slaughters Israeli children in cold blood, Palestinian leaders are often asked for official statements, condemning the violence.

The leaders often comply, but with statements like this: “I denounce this act of senseless violence, just as I denounce the acts of senseless violence committed by Israelis against Palestinians.”

That is hardly satisfactory, pointing the finger at others for their alleged wrongs rather than simply taking responsibility for the wrongs on one’s own side.

The House’s resolution condemning anti-Semitism is not much better, watering down the rebuke of Ilhan Omar’s anti-Semitic comments in a sea of widespread condemnation of other “hateful” conduct.

The resolution, which is seven pages long, is devoted to, “Condemning anti-Semitism as hateful expressions of intolerance that are contradictory to the values and aspirations that define the people of the United States and condemning anti-Muslim discrimination and bigotry against minorities as hateful expressions of intolerance that are contrary to the values and aspirations of the United States.”

So, rather than directly rebuking Omar (herself a Muslim), this resolution also condemns “anti-Muslim discrimination and bigotry against minorities.”

Talk about losing punch and focus.

And talk about losing sight of the unique nature of anti-Semitism in world history, until today. (I address that in detail here.)

But this is only the beginning.

Because the bill was driven by Democrats, and because Democrats want us to believe that those who voted for Trump are primarily white supremacists, the bill also stated that “white supremacists in the United States have exploited and continue to exploit bigotry and weaponize hate for political gain, targeting traditionally persecuted peoples, including African Americans, Native Americans, and other people of color, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, immigrants and others with verbal attacks, incitement and violence.”

So much for focusing on anti-Semitism.

In fact, the next sections of the resolution address the crimes of “self-identified neo-Confederates, white nationalists, neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klansmen.”

To be fair, the next 10 sections focus on anti-Semitism, noting that “anti-Semitism is the centuries-old bigotry and form of racism faced by Jewish people simply because they are Jews.”

And these sections do a good job of defining anti-Semitism, even giving some examples of anti-Semitism in history.

The resolution also highlights why there was such an uproar about Omar’s claim that some congressmen were loyal to a foreign country (and thereby disloyal to America). The exact wording is, “Whereas accusing Jews of being more loyal to Israel or to the Jewish community than to the United States constitutes anti-Semitism because it suggests that Jewish citizens cannot be patriotic Americans and trusted neighbors, when Jews have loyally served our nation every day since its founding, whether in public or community life or military service.”

Yet the next five sections focus on anti-Muslim bigotry, and the final plank of the resolution “encourages all public officials to confront the reality of anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, racism and other forms of bigotry, as well as historical struggles against them, to ensure that the United States will live up to the transcendent principles of tolerance, religious freedom and equal protection as embodied in the Declaration of Independence and the first and 14th amendments to the Constitution.”

Again, to be fair, the first plank of the closing statement reads: “Resolved, That the House of Representatives — 1) rejects the perpetuation of anti-Semitic stereotypes in the United States and around the world, including the pernicious myth of dual loyalty and foreign allegiance, especially in the context of support for the United States-Israel alliance.”

But the final plank again waters this down by grouping “anti-Semitism” together with “Islamophobia, racism and other forms of bigotry.”

Is this satisfactory? Is this the right response to Omar’s dangerous rhetoric?

Just imagine if the shoe was on the other foot and a Jewish member of Congress made a blatantly anti-Islamic comment.

How would American Muslims feel if the House issued a resolution condemning Islamophobia, along with “anti-Semitism, racism and other forms of bigotry.”

Would they not cry foul, and rightly so?

This was the moment to confront the insidious, rising tide of anti-Semitism in America, not to group it together with other hateful and dangerous attitudes. Other forms of bigotry and racism can be addressed another day.

Not only so, but at a time when there is genuine reason to be concerned about the rising tide of hatred towards Bible-believing Christians in America—this has been well-documented—the House did not utter a direct word about this while finding time to address “Islamophobia” repeatedly.

How telling, and how unfortunate.

We shall see which direction things go in the days ahead. {eoa}

Charisma News will launch the podcast series, “The Truth About Human Trafficking,” March 11. Visit for the episodes, which will feature survivors, prosecutors and abolitionists, and subscribe on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts to catch these powerful interviews.