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From the website:
It’s possible, you know. More than that, it’s probable. The end of extreme global poverty. 52% of the world’s population once lived in extreme poverty. That number is now 26% — and that percentage was reduced in one generation.

Isaiah 58

1  “Cry aloud; do not hold back;

lift up your voice like a trumpet;

declare to my people their transgression,

to the house of Jacob their sins.

2 Yet they seek me daily

and delight to know my ways,

as if they were a nation that did righteousness

and did not forsake the judgment of their God;

they ask of me righteous judgments;

they delight to draw near to God.

3 ‘Why have we fasted, and you see it not?

Why have we humbled ourselves, and you take no knowledge of it?’

Behold, in the day of your fast you seek your own pleasure,

and oppress all your workers.

4 Behold, you fast only to quarrel and to fight

and to hit with a wicked fist.

Fasting like yours this day

will not make your voice to be heard on high.

5 Is such the fast that I choose,

a day for a person to humble himself?

Is it to bow down his head like a reed,

and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him?

Will you call this a fast,

and a day acceptable to the LORD?

6  “Is not this the fast that I choose:

to loose the bonds of wickedness,

to undo the straps of the yoke,

to let the oppressed go free,

and to break every yoke?

7 Is it not to share your bread with the hungry

and bring the homeless poor into your house;

when you see the naked, to cover him,

and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?

8 Then shall your light break forth like the dawn,

and your healing shall spring up speedily;

your righteousness shall go before you;

the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard.

9 Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer;

you shall cry, and he will say, ‘Here I am.’

If you take away the yoke from your midst,

the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness,

10 if you pour yourself out for the hungry

and satisfy the desire of the afflicted,

then shall your light rise in the darkness

and your gloom be as the noonday.

11 And the LORD will guide you continually

and satisfy your desire in scorched places

and make your bones strong;

and you shall be like a watered garden,

like a spring of water,

whose waters do not fail.

12 And your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt;

you shall raise up the foundations of many generations;

you shall be called the repairer of the breach,

the restorer of streets to dwell in.

13  “If you turn back your foot from the Sabbath,

from doing your pleasure on my holy day,

and call the Sabbath a delight

and the holy day of the LORD honorable;

if you honor it, not going your own ways,

or seeking your own pleasure, or talking idly;

14 then you shall take delight in the LORD,

and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth;

I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father,

for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”

Anthony Flew's Testimony

For those of you that think the most decided person against the Gospel could ever come to Christ. Flew was an avowed atheist – he wrote on the subject and debated those who believed in God. Thank God that he shames the wise and exalts the foolish.

Anthony Flew’s Testimony

HT: Primetime Jesus

Redemption Accomplished & Applied

Many are familiar with the story of Hosea. A prophet of God is told to marry a woman of ill repute. They have a few kids and then she runs off and sleeps with another man. Hosea’s life is an incarnate parable of of God’s relationship with Israel. He had redeemed her out of pagan lands (Abraham was a star-worshipper, Neh 9.7) and had broken her chains of slavery to the Egyptians. Once things seemed to be secure, Israel begins to commit adultery with the neighboring people’s religion. She began to sleep with Ba’al.

Many would have us believe that when God redeems people from their slavery and whoredom with sin that he woos (or lovingly encourages us) to come to him. This is not the story of Hosea – and by extension, the story of Christian redemption.

Hosea goes to his adulterous wife and does not woo her. He goes and buys her back (Hos 3.2). He tells her, “You must dwell with me…You must not play the whore” (v.3). Hosea does not have a conference with her. He does not ask her to write down the positives and negatives of such a decision as to whether she will return with him. His commands to her stem from his having purchased her. Because he effectively owns her, he is then able to make demands on her.

So it is with the purchasing done for us on the Cross. Jesus does not woo us. He purchased us – not with silver or gold, but with his infinite blood (1 Peter 1.18-19). And so, those sheep who belong to him must dwell with him.

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