In a question and answer session in Knoxville, TN, Christian singer, Lauren Daigle shared how God leads her through her anxiety.
During the “Look Up Child” tour Q&A posted to Instagram, a mother and daughter approached the microphone to ask Daigle for advice on dealing with anxiety.
According to Relevant Magazine, the two-time Grammy award winner shared, “I wouldn’t necessarily say ‘Oh I am an anxious person,’ until anxiety comes.”
She continued, “There are times where I’m like ‘What is happening? This isn’t me, this isn’t me. Someone told me a long time ago, they said, ‘perfect love casts out all fear,’ and I remember listening to that over and over and over again – perfect love casts out all fear.”
Then Daigle told the audience of something that she is constantly reminded of. She said, “Well, I know someone who loves me beyond my wildest imagination, beyond my wildest dreams. And He has a love that’s so rich for me, that He’s actually looking out for yesterday, today and tomorrow. And he can see the things that I can’t see.”
Daigle shared that when she feels anxious, she reminds herself that God’s love is greater than her anxiety could ever be.
She said, “Even now, as an adult, when more anxiety has been added to my life… I have to say, ‘Okay God, I want to know what you see for tomorrow. Can you come and give me that peace so that I can rest tonight?”
She continued, “Alright, I have fear here, but if I really believe in that perfect love that you have for me, I’m just gonna push fear aside and say that’s a lie.”
Daigle noted that she never really dealt with anxiety until adulthood, noting that now, every time she stops touring, the lifestyle change shakes her up. She even shared that the night before the Q&A, while driving down to Knoxville, she began to cry “out of nowhere.”
She said, “last night, I just started crying out of nowhere and I realized what it was, it was anxiety. I was getting anxious because we’re about to come off the road and I’m about to have to go into a different pace of life and it’s a different change every time we come off the road, and I get anxious about that. I don’t like it, I’m like, ‘Let’s just stay in one season of life and just run and enjoy it.”
She then expanded on her strategy for approaching anxiety for the mother and daughter duo. Daigle related it back to the anxiety the young girl could be facing with school.
She said, “So, it might be going to school and facing people that are unkind, but guess what, God saw through every single day. On the other side, it was always available, His love is always available. And He was always looking out for me in places that I couldn’t see. And so, that’s what I focus on, ‘Alright God, your love is better than me trying to control tomorrow or work it out. Your Love is better, and it’ll have my back better than I’ll have my own,” Daigle declared.
The two-time Grammy winner is preparing for the final leg of her “Look Up Child” tour. The last leg is set to kick-off on April 25, in Shreveport, LA.
CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand (AP) — At least 49 people were killed in mass shootings at two mosques full of worshippers attending Friday prayers on what the prime minister called “one of New Zealand’s darkest days.”
One man was arrested and charged with murder in what appeared to be a carefully planned racist attack. Police also defused explosive devices in a car.
Two other armed suspects were being held in custody. Police said they were trying to determine how they might be involved.
AP Graphic / Dien Magno
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the events in Christchurch represented “an extraordinary and unprecedented act of violence,” and that many of the victims could be migrants or refugees.
“It is clear that this can now only be described as a terrorist attack,” Ardern said.
In addition to the dead, health officials said 48 people were being treated at Christchurch Hospital for gunshot wounds. Injuries ranged from minor to critical.
Police took three men and a woman into custody after the shootings, which shocked people across the nation of 5 million people. Police later said one of the arrests didn’t relate to the shootings.
An armed police officer watches as a man is taken by ambulance staff from a mosque in central Christchurch, New Zealand. (AP Photo/Mark Baker)
While there was no reason to believe there were any more suspects, Ardern said the national security threat level was being raised from low to high, the second-highest level.
National carrier Air New Zealand canceled at least 17 flights in and out of Christchurch, saying it couldn’t properly screen customers and their baggage following the shootings.
Police said the investigation had extended 360 kilometers (240 miles) to the south, where homes in Dunedin were evacuated around a “location of interest.” A police statement gave no further detail of how it might be linked to the attacks.
Authorities have not specified who they detained, but said none had been on any watch list. A man who claimed responsibility for the shootings left a 74-page anti-immigrant manifesto in which he explained who he was and his reasoning for the attack. He said he was a 28-year-old white Australian and a racist.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison confirmed that one of the people detained was an Australian-born citizen.
Police Commissioner Mike Bush said Friday night that a man had been charged with murder. He did not say whether police believed the same shooter was responsible for both attacks.
Armed police patrol outside the mosque. (AP Photo/Mark Baker)
Ardern alluded at a news conference to anti-immigrant sentiment as the possible motive, saying that while many people affected by the shootings may be migrants or refugees, “they have chosen to make New Zealand their home, and it is their home. They are us.”
As for the suspects, Ardern said, “these are people who I would describe as having extremist views that have absolutely no place in New Zealand.”
Bush said police had found two improvised explosive devices in one car, a clarification from an earlier statement that there were devices in multiple vehicles. He said they had disabled one and were in the process of disabling the second.
The deadliest attack occurred at the Al Noor mosque in central Christchurch at about 1:45 p.m., when 41 people were killed.
Witness Len Peneha said he saw a man dressed in black enter the mosque and then heard dozens of shots, followed by people running from the mosque in terror.
Peneha, who lives next door to the mosque, said the gunman ran out of the mosque, dropped what appeared to be a semi-automatic weapon in his driveway, and fled. He said he then went into the mosque to try to help.
“I saw dead people everywhere. There were three in the hallway, at the door leading into the mosque, and people inside the mosque,” he said. “I don’t understand how anyone could do this to these people, to anyone. It’s ridiculous.”
He said he helped about five people recover in his home. He said one was slightly injured.
“I’ve lived next door to this mosque for about five years and the people are great, they’re very friendly,” he said. “I just don’t understand it.”
He said the gunman was white and was wearing a helmet with some kind of device on top, giving him a military-type appearance.
A video that was apparently livestreamed by the shooter shows the attack in horrifying detail. The gunman spends more than two minutes inside the mosque spraying terrified worshippers with bullets again and again, sometimes re-firing at people he has already cut down.
He then walks outside to the street, where he shoots at people on the sidewalk. Children’s screams can be heard in the distance as he returns to his car to get another rifle.
The gunman then walks back into the mosque, where there are at least two dozen people lying on the ground. After walking back outside and shooting a woman there, he gets back in his car, where the song “Fire” by English rock band “The Crazy World of Arthur Brown” can be heard blasting from the speakers. The singer bellows, “I am the god of hellfire!” and the gunman drives away. The video then cuts out.
Police and ambulance staff help a wounded man. (AP Photo/Mark Baker)
During a second shooting at the Linwood mosque about 5 kilometers (3 miles) from the Al Noor mosque, seven people were killed.
One more person died later at Christchurch Hospital.
Mark Nichols told the New Zealand Herald he heard about five gunshots and that a Friday prayer-goer returned fire with a rifle or shotgun.
Nichols said he saw two injured people being carried out on stretchers past his automotive shop and that both people appeared to be alive.
The police commissioner warned anybody who was thinking of going to a mosque anywhere in New Zealand on Friday to stay put.
The man who claimed responsibility for the shooting said he came to New Zealand only to plan and train for the attack. He said he was not a member of any organization, but had donated to and interacted with many nationalist groups, though he acted alone and no group ordered the attack.
He said the mosques in Christchurch and Linwood would be the targets, as would a third mosque in the town of Ashburton if he could make it there.
He said he chose New Zealand because of its location, to show that even the most remote parts of the world were not free of “mass immigration.”
New Zealand is generally considered to be a welcoming country for migrants and refugees. Last year, the prime minister announced the country would boost its annual refugee quota from 1,000 to 1,500 starting in 2020. Ardern, whose party campaigned on the promise of raising the intake of refugees, called the planned increase “the right thing to do.”
A man talks on his mobile phone across the road from a mosque in central Christchurch, New Zealand. (AP Photo/Mark Baker)
David Meates, the chief executive of the Canterbury District Health Board, said 12 operating theaters were being used at Christchurch Hospital to treat the injured and that some patients would need multiple surgeries. He said about 200 family members were at the hospital awaiting news of their loved ones.
Home to nearly 400,000 people, Christchurch is the largest city on New Zealand’s South Island. Sometimes called the garden city, it has been rebuilding since an earthquake in 2011 killed 185 people and destroyed many downtown buildings.
A cricket match between New Zealand and Bangladesh scheduled to start Saturday was canceled after the Bangladesh cricket team had a narrow escape.
Players and members of the team’s coaching staff were reportedly on their bus, approaching the Masjid Al Noor mosque in Hagley Park when the shooting broke out.
Batsman Tamim Iqbal tweeted “entire team got saved from active shooters. Frightening experience and please keep us in your prayers.”
Mass shootings in New Zealand are rare. Before Friday’s attack, the deadliest shooting in modern history occurred in the small town of Aramoana in 1990, when gunman David Gray shot and killed 13 people following a dispute with a neighbor.
Perry reported from Wellington. Associated Press writers Kristen Gelineau in Sydney, Rod McGuirk in Canberra, Australia, and Chris Blake in Bangkok contributed to this report. Source: https://apnews.com/ce9e1d267af149dab40e3e5391254530
The human microbiome—that invisible world of bacteria, viruses, and fungi in and on our bodies—was little studied even though scientists have known about it for centuries. Now the world of science and medicine is paying closer attention.
“There is an ecological problem—a climate change—now happening inside of us,” Martin Blaser said, a pioneer in the field and the new director of the Center for Advanced Biotechnology and Medicine at Rutgers University Biomedical and Health Sciences.
“There’s a lot of discussion about climate change in the world but very little about a parallel process happening within us as our modern lifestyle affects the microbes that live inside us.”
Here, Blaser discusses how his work will help researchers and clinicians better understand the benefits of the microbiome and how it can be harnessed and protected to promote human health.
Q: Why should people care about the microbiome?
A: We all have a microbiome—every human, animal, and plant—that’s been around for a very long time. For eons, it’s served many functions, including training our immune system to do its work, and our brain in how to think and [assist] our bodies to digest food, absorb vitamins, and defend against invaders.
It has also changed drastically in developing countries [and the] United States, specifically in early childhood when babies develop their lifelong patterns of immunity and metabolism. Over the last century, our microbiome has been depleting, losing some of the ancestral microbes, and [I have hypothesized] that it is leading to major diseases and epidemics such as obesity, asthma, food allergies, diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease, and cancer.
Q: What is threatening the microbiome, causing it to change so much?
A: As a whole, the public will try anything to attain and maintain a healthy lifestyle, but some modern-day practices intended to improve health and medicine are over-used and may actually be doing more harm than good. These threats include the very widespread over-usage of antibiotics, C-sections, use of baby formula over breast milk, and antibacterial products.
Antibiotics are the number one threat to our microbiome, but it’s complex because while they are a pillar of modern life. Almost all children are receiving multiple courses in the first few years of life. Every time a child takes a dose of an antibiotic, doctors need to account for the cost-benefit of the antibiotics and how it may be increasing the risk of other diseases.
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We need to educate medical professionals to understand that every prescription has a cost and to question whether it is absolutely necessary. Infants’ microbes are threatened when they are delivered via C-section or given formula as opposed to breast milk.
Every generation hands over their microbiome to the next as the baby passes through the birth canal, but babies born through C-section lack that transfer. At some point early in life, babies will then be given their first course of antibiotics. It takes a while for the microbiome of babies born by C-section to normalize and in that time when the brain and immune system develops, they become more at risk for developing obesity, celiac disease, and juvenile diabetes.
Next, babies fed formula receive important nutrients such as calories and calcium, but they’re missing the micronutrients that breast milk has evolved to contain. As a result, the microbiome is altered in ways that could increase the later risk of obesity, asthma, and allergies.
The last major threat is the use of antibacterials, whether it be soaps or hand gels, as they get rid of the “good” germs as well as the “bad.” We need good germs to help our bodies defend against the bad, but with antibacterials, we are washing everything away.
Q: What can people do to maintain the health and influence of their microbiome?
A: Each person, especially parents of young children, should consider the benefits and risks associated with the use of antibiotics, C-sections, baby formula, and antibacterials, and question whether they are completely necessary. For example, question your doctor if you are prescribed an antibiotic. The illness may resolve itself just as well on its own without it.
Sometimes, C-sections and formula feeding are medically necessary, but if there is a choice, women should opt for vaginal delivery and feeding their infant with breast milk.
Lastly, rather than buying antibacterial soaps, consider washing with plain soap and water instead. Any benefits from antibacterial soaps have not been proven, despite their widespread marketing.
This article was first published by Rutgers University. Republished via Futurity.org under Creative Commons License 4.0.
One Idaho teenager who made $35,000 in one week, decided to tithe $7,000 to his church “for the sole purpose of advancing the kingdom.”
According to CBN News, 18-year-old David Holston was visiting his mother in Seattle, Washington when the state was hit by a historic snowstorm of up to 10 inches. The Idaho teen – who is no stranger to the snow – decided that this would be a great opportunity to serve the community by offering his snow plowing services.
CBN News reports that the teen put an add up on Craig’s list and was flooded with calls from locals and businesses who were not equipped for the snow – a rare sighting in Seattle. Typically, Holston charges $125 and hour, but because the demand was so high, he raised his price to $500+.
The 18-year-old Idaho native told CBN that he would start his day at 2 a.m. and work 12 to 15 hours plowing driveways, parking lots and streets each day. By the end of the week, Holston had made $35,000 and he knew exactly how he wanted to spend it.
In an interview with Fox News, Holston shared that he wanted to tithe 20 percent of his earnings to his church, buy lawn mowing equipment for a potential new business venture and save the rest for buying his first house.
Holston also told the news outlet that it was only through Christ that he could have been so successful in his endeavor, noting that Luke 12:31 inspires his work ethic. Holston said, “I credit all of my success to my savior Jesus Christ who died on a cross to forgive my sins and three days later rose from the dead.”
The California Department of Veterans Affairs is threatening to evict an 84-year-old widow from her California Veterans Home if she continues to hold Bible studies, according to her attorney.
The woman, Artis Breau, has volunteered as a chaplain and led Bible studies over the past decade.
The controversy began last September when one of the residents said he had trouble sleeping after having a conversation with her about heaven and hell. Officials with the California Department of Veterans Affairs (CalVet) labeled it elder abuse and emotional abuse, according to the Pacific Justice Institute.
Her volunteer status within the chaplaincy program was suspended in December. Then, on March 1, CalVet told the Pacific Justice Institute that Breau would be subjected to an “involuntary discharge” from the home if she continued leading Bible studies.
Breau believes officials are skeptical of her because she is an evangelical Jewish believer in Christ.
“CalVet’s treatment of this widow is shameful,” said Pacific Justice Institute attorney Matthew McReynolds. “Throughout this process, we have been deeply disturbed not only by the lack of constitutional guidelines, ineptitude, and lack of due process in the investigation, but even more by the notion that discussing religious views on the eternal state of the soul is somehow elder abuse or emotional abuse.
“Our client’s husband fought for his country to preserve the freedoms now being threatened by CalVet. Our veterans deserve better.”
Breau was a civilian employee in the office of the chief of staff of the Army at the Pentagon during the Korean War. Her husband served in World War II and the Korean War.
The Pacific Justice Institute is considering a lawsuit.
“This shocking attack from the State against our client’s exercise of religious convictions is deeply disturbing,” said Brad Dacus, president of Pacific Justice Institute. “The State seeks to punish Artis based on non-existent directives, and deprive her of a personal ministry to the veterans who have benefited from her religious services for years. Artis isn’t fighting just for herself, but for the Gospel and for the residents who are unable to fight for themselves against the State’s attempted intimidation.”
Michael Foust is a freelance writer. Visit his blog, MichaelFoust.com.
Hollywood studios are “drenched in the blood of innocent children” according to Mel Gibson who claims the consumption of “baby blood is so
Hollywood studios are “drenched in the blood of innocent children” according to Mel Gibson who claims the consumption of “baby blood is so popular in Hollywood that it basically operates as a currency of its own.”
Hollywood elites are an “enemy of mankind continually acting contrary to our best interests” and “breaking every God given taboo known to man, including the sanctity of children,” Mel Gibson said in London, where he is promoting his role in Daddy’s Home 2, his most prominent on-screen role in years.
“It’s an open secret in Hollywood. These people have their own religious and spiritual teachings and their own social and moral frameworks. They have their sacred texts – they are sick, believe me – and they couldn’t be more at odds with what America stands for.”
Mel Gibson appeared on the Graham Norton Show on the BBC, and he schooled shocked guests about the real nature of Hollywood elites in the green room backstage after his appearance.
Explaining that he spent the last ten years “working on my own ideas, outside of the Hollywood system” after being blacklisted by Hollywood in 2006 for sharing opinions about the industry and the world that run counter to liberal orthodoxy, Gibson said, “I don’t know how to break it to you gently… Hollywood is institutionalized pedophilia.”
“They are using and abusing kids.“
“They churn through a huge amount of kids every year. Their spiritual beliefs, if you can call them that, direct them to harvest the energy of the kids. They feast on this stuff and they thrive on it,” the Hacksaw Ridge director said.
“What do I mean? This isn’t some kind of artistic abstraction. They harvest the blood of children. They eat their flesh. They believe this gives them life force. If the child was suffering in body and psyche before it died, they believe this gives them extra life force.”
“There is a creative and loving force inside most of us that guides us through life. These people don’t have this. For them it’s the opposite.”
According to Mel Gibson, who has spent 30 years in and out of the Hollywood system, the industry elites “thrive on pain, trauma, stress, abuse, and suffering.”
“Hollywood is drenched in the blood of innocent children. For a long time all the references to pedophilia and cannibalism were symbolic or allusive. But I was personally introduced to the practice in the early 2000s. I can talk about this now because these people, the execs, they’re dead now.”
“The blood of a sexually abused infant is considered highly ‘enriched’ and is highly prized. The money changing hands, the favors, the kickbacks – you have no idea. Babies are a high-functioning currency all of their own. Babies are their premium brand of high-grade caviar cocaine diamond steak.”
But according to Gibson this isn’t a flavor-of-the-month perversion, popular among men and women who have grown bored of standard-issue sins.
“This isn’t anything new. If you do some research you will see it’s a metaphysical, alchemical phenomenon and you can find it behind the scenes in all the dark eras in history.
“It’s a dark, multidimensional occult art and practice, used by secret societies in the last few hundred years for social programming and mind control, and raised to a zenith by Hollywood in America in our era.”
Lauren Daigle, Billboard Music Award’s 2017 Top Christian Artist of the Year, said in a radio interview last week that she wouldn’t necessarily label herself as a Christian artist.
This decision comes following several choices from last year that landed Daigle in hot water. The singer first faced criticism when she appeared on the Ellen Show and later for skirting around a question about her stance on LGBT rights in a radio interview.
The popular singer, who is typically considered to be a Christian artist, met with Dave Styles from 104.3 MYfm last week to talk about her success in mainstream culture.
During the interview, Style asked Daigle how she would define herself as an artist – meaning would she consider herself a Christian artist or simply just an artist. He said, “You are known, as far as your music, you’re known as more of a Christian artist but now with all of this mainstream, I mean you’re here, you’re at MYfm.”
He asked, “What do you call yourself? How do you name yourself? Do you call yourself still, a Christian artist?”
Daigle’s response was that labels are constructs that other people assign you. She said, “I feel like those labels get put on you by other people.”
She continued, “I was reading an article, I read them like here and there, gotta stay away sometimes but then other times I’m like indulge, and I was reading one and one of them is like a Christian artist, another one’s just artist.”
“I think part of me is just artist because it encompasses everything,” the chart-topping singer added.
The Christian Post reports that while the singer may not label herself as a Christian artist, she told them that she would not be leaving the Christian music genre. She told the outlet, “[My music] is having crossover appeal, but it doesn’t mean that I’m leaving one for the other or that I’m going to be swept up by one thing or the other. For me, it’s like, ‘Oh, everything just got even more clear.’ Everything just got clearer as to why it is that we go and love people who are outside of the walls of our church, outside of the walls that we’re comfortable with.”
Photo courtesy: Getty Images/Jesse Grant/Stringer
Video courtesy: 104.3 MYfm
Abortions are a “part of God’s plan” #ShoutYourAbortion co-founder Amelia Bonow told young kids in a YouTube video.
According to the Christian Post, in an episode of “Kids Meet” on the HiHo Kids YouTube channel, Bonow met with six kids of varying ages to ask them what they thought about abortions. While most of the kids seemed to agree with the abortion advocate, one kid softly pushed back.
Bonow asked a young boy, who previously disclosed to the activist that he believed that abortion was for the most part acceptable, if he believed that there were any reasons why it would not be okay.
He said, “I want to say if you’re being reckless, if there is nothing wrong going on.”
Bonow shook her head in disagreement saying, “I don’t know, I just don’t agree.”
Bonow then inquired further asking, “Do we want people to just have all those babies?”
The boy responded by offering the option of adoption which could still offer the unborn babies a chance at life.
When Bonow did not agree with that answer she came back saying that she should not be “forced” to have a baby. The #ShoutYourAbortion activist said, “I feel like if I am forced to create life, I have lost the right to my own life.” She continued, “I should be the one to decide if my body creates a life. Even if you are giving a kid up for adoption, you still have a kid out there somewhere.”
Bonow then asked the boy if he was religious, to which he said, “I believe in God.”
She followed up by asking, “What do you think that God thinks about abortion?”
The young boy responded noting that he thinks God would be “fine with it” because people are still having kids.
The boy then turned the question on Bonow. She answered, “I think it’s all part of God’s plan.”
During other parts of the video she equates abortion to going to a “really bad dentist appointment.”
The activist also commented on people who consider themselves to be pro-life. She said, “I don’t call them pro-life. I call them anti-choice. Because who would disagree with that statement [of] being pro-life?” She added, “To me, the phrase pro-life is propaganda because often the people that say that don’t want to take care of people who have babies that they can’t afford and then are totally poor. They want to deprive people of access to healthcare, and I’m just like, that’s not, you guys aren’t pro-life.”
According to CBN News, there were 42 million deaths worldwide by abortion in 2018.
#source ChristianHeadlines.com
Occult spirituality is on the rise, even among Christians. Is it just pop culture or is it the Prince of Darkness? My guess: it’s both.
Netflix’s most talked-about new show this fall is “The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.” The “Sabrina” of the title is Sabrina Spellman, a half-witch/half-mortal who is about to celebrate her sixteenth birthday. On that day, which is, not coincidentally, October 31, she is expected to undergo what the show calls a “dark baptism,” in which she would pledge loyalty to Satan.
Now before you are tempted to say “Okay, it’s just another stupid TV show,” consider this: According to recent reports, occult ideas and practices are booming in the United States, and not just outside the church.
A recent Pew Research study found that a large and growing percentage of Americans believe in reincarnation, astrology, psychics, and the presence of spirits in nature.
In fact, six in ten Americans accept at least one or more of these beliefs. Shockingly, that number is just as high among self-identified Christians. Even agnostics—over half, in fact—have adopted occult ideas, along with the overwhelming majority of those who call themselves “spiritual, but not religious.”
The occult is becoming mainstream in this country. At least part of the reason why is how easy, user-friendly, and infinitely customizable the chaotic buffet of beliefs borrowed from Eastern pantheistic faiths and pre-Christian religions is these days. There’s no church or creed or set of rules. You can pick and choose whatever you like. It’s spirituality meets consumerism. And you are the god.
Still, there’s also an increase of more rigorous disciples of the mystical—those who really identify and practice religions like Wicca.
According to new research by Trinity College in Connecticut, Wicca is one of the fastest-growing religions in the country. Between 1990 and 2008, it saw a forty-fold increase in the number of adherents. One-and-a-half million Americans now identify as either Wiccan or Pagan.
The Web publication Quartzy appropriately described modern witchcraft as “the perfect religion for liberal millennials…” Wiccans emphasize “free thought and will of the individual,” encouraging “learning and understanding of the earth and nature,” as well as tolerance and the ideals of feminism. It even comes with a cool hashtag: #WitchesofInstagram.
In other words, for most of its adherents, Wicca functions as a spiritual patina on progressive politics, not really a source of supernatural powers. You won’t find these witches stirring cauldrons or riding broomsticks, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing darker going on.
As C. S. Lewis wrote in the preface to “The Screwtape Letters,” there are two equal and opposite errors we can fall into concerning devils and demons. One is to disbelieve in or disregard their existence, a posture far too common in the western world. The other is to have an excessive and unhealthy interest in them.
This upsurge of occult beliefs and religions in this country, though often political and consumeristic, is still a sign that forces of darkness are at work. For one thing, all false faiths lead people—including people within the church—away from Christ, and that has eternal consequences.
For Christians, there are more immediate consequences. The Scriptures are clear: Satan is a defeated foe, put to open shame by the resurrection of Christ. But make no mistake, he’s still an active foe, roaming about “like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.”
From Acts 19, we learn that the defeated forces of the enemy pose a very real and even sometimes physical threat. Those who don’t take that threat seriously may end up like Sceva’s seven sons: bleeding, naked, and running for their lives.
Not every plastic lawn vampire or self-proclaimed “witch” is a manifestation of spiritual evil; but the rise of occult beliefs, especially within the church, is—making the old call to “renounce the devil and all his works” even more relevant today than ever.
BreakPoint is a Christian worldview ministry that seeks to build and resource a movement of Christians committed to living and defending Christian worldview in all areas of life. Begun by Chuck Colson in 1991 as a daily radio broadcast, BreakPoint provides a Christian perspective on today’s news and trends via radio, interactive media, and print. Today BreakPoint commentaries, co-hosted by Eric Metaxas and John Stonestreet, air daily on more than 1,200 outlets with an estimated weekly listening audience of eight million people. Feel free to contact us at BreakPoint.org where you can read and search answers to common questions.
