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Continue to be Faithful!

In my first years serving the Lord, I was dedicated to serving with an inner city bus ministry in the heart of Baltimore. We would go door to door and offer “free Sunday morning babysitting” for their kids. If they agreed to let us take their kids to church, we would come and pick them up early every Sunday morning. Many times, the obvious change in their kids’ lives would make a great impression and their parents would be moved to come out to the church as well — then they too would give their lives to the Lord! It was exciting to see whole families come to faith! The following story touched my heart, from Max Lucado’s book, God Came Near.

Keep going – the Lord may have more to show you.

Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem!

Last week, just before Chanukah, the United Nations passed resolution 2334. The resolution, in a nutshell, states that Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria (commonly called the “West Bank”), have “no legal validity and constitute a flagrant violation under international law”. The resolution enjoins the world to “to distinguish, in their relevant dealings, between the territory of the State of Israel and the territories occupied since 1967.”

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Allow mourning to be turned to joy!

Tonight begins Tisha B’Av, the ninth day of the fifth month of the Hebrew calendar year. Some of you may know that a lot of bad things have happened to the Jewish people on this date, the first of which was when the spies returned with an evil report of Israel, written about in Numbers 13 and 14. Both the first and the second Temple were destroyed on this exact day, hundreds of years apart. The Crusades began on this day in 1095. The Jews were expelled out of England on this day in 1290. They were expelled out of Spain and Portugal on this day in 1492. And these are just to name a few!

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