Reading: Luke 22:63-65 NLT
The guards in charge of Jesus began mocking and beating him. They blindfolded him and said, “Prophesy to us! Who hit you that time?” And they hurled all sorts of terrible insults at him.
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Reading: Isaiah 53.3 NLT
He was despised and rejected — a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care.
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Thursday, May 9, 2013 – Today is Ascension Day
agnus dei - english + romanian blog
By Brian Tabb at DesiringGod.org
It is impossible to overstate the importance of Good Friday, when Jesus died for our sins, and Easter Sunday, when he was raised from the dead — but Jesus’s earthly ministry did not stop there.
After the resurrection, Jesus taught his disciples about God’s kingdom for forty days (Acts 1:3) and then he was “taken up” to heaven (Acts 1:2, 11). The cross and empty tomb are at the very heart of the gospel message proclaimed by Jesus’s followers throughout history (see 1 Corinthians 15:1–4). However, for many evangelical Christians and churches, Jesus’s ascension is simply an afterthought to Easter and Good Friday.
Here I want to highlight six aspects of Jesus’s ascension or exaltation, in hopes that this significant and climactic event in Jesus’s life will no longer be an afterthought for you.
In Acts 1:1–2…
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Reading: Luke 22:54-62 NLT
So they arrested him and led him to the high priest’s home. And Peter followed at a distance. The guards lit a fire in the middle of the courtyard and sat around it, and Peter joined them there.
A servant girl noticed him in the firelight and began staring at him. Finally she said, “This man was one of Jesus’ followers!” But Peter denied it. “Woman,” he said, “I don’t even know him!”
After a while someone else looked at him and said, “You must be one of them!” “No, man, I’m not!” Peter retorted.
About an hour later someone else insisted, “This must be one of them, because he is a Galilean, too.” But Peter said, “Man, I don’t know what you are talking about.”
And immediately, while he was still speaking, the rooster crowed. At that moment the Lord turned and looked at Peter.
Suddenly, the Lord’s words flashed through Peter’s mind: “Before the rooster crows tomorrow morning, you will deny three times that you even know me.”
And Peter left the courtyard, weeping bitterly.
Prayer: Lord Jesus – Fill me with a spirit of repentance and remorse for the times that I have denied you. May I weep with Peter over my weakness of resolve. Forgive me… and give me the the courage to follow you… come what may. May I honor you in all things. Amen.
Hymn: “Are Ye Able,” Said the Master – Earl Marlatt (1926)
“Are ye able,” said the Master, “to be crucified with me?” “Yea,” the sturdy dreamers answered, “to the death we follow thee.”
Refrain: Lord, we are able. Our spirits are thine. Remold them, make us, like thee, divine. Thy guiding radiance above us shall be a beacon to God, to love, and loyalty.
Are ye able to remember, when a thief lifts up his eyes, that his pardoned soul is worthy
of a place in paradise?
Are ye able when the shadows close around you with the sod, to believe that spirit triumphs, to commend your soul to God?
Are ye able? Still the Master whispers down eternity, and heroic spirits answer, now as then in Galilee.
By Raymond Ibrahim Published May 07, 2013 / FoxNews.com
Link to original: The mass exodus of Christians from the Muslim world | Fox News.
A mass exodus of Christians is currently underway. Millions of Christians are being displaced from one end of the Islamic world to the other.
We are reliving the true history of how the Islamic world, much of which prior to the Islamic conquests was almost entirely Christian, came into being.
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom
recently said: “The flight of Christians out of the region is unprecedented and it’s increasing year by year.” In our lifetime alone “Christians might disappear altogether from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Egypt.”
Ongoing reports from the Islamic world certainly support this conclusion: Iraq was the earliest indicator of the fate awaiting Christians once Islamic forces are liberated from the grip of dictators.
In 2003, Iraq’s Christian population was at least one million. Today fewer than 400,000 remain—the result of an anti-Christian campaign that began with the U.S. occupation of Iraq, when countless Christian churches were bombed and countless Christians killed, including by crucifixion and beheading.
The 2010 Baghdad church attack, which saw nearly 60 Christian worshippers slaughtered, is the tip of a decade-long iceberg.
Now, as the U.S. supports the jihad on Syria’s secular president Assad, the same pattern has come to Syria: entire regions and towns where Christians lived for centuries before Islam came into being have now been emptied, as the opposition targets Christians for kidnapping, plundering, and beheadings, all in compliance with mosque calls telling the populace that it’s a “sacred duty” to drive Christians away. Continue reading “The mass exodus of Christians from the Muslim world | Fox News”
Reading: Luke 22:47-53 NLT
But even as Jesus said this, a crowd approached, led by Judas, one of the twelve disciples. Judas walked over to Jesus to greet him with a kiss. But Jesus said, “Judas, would you betray the Son of Man with a kiss?”
When the other disciples saw what was about to happen, they exclaimed, “Lord, should we fight? We brought the swords!” And one of them struck at the high priest’s slave, slashing off his right ear.
But Jesus said, “No more of this.” And he touched the man’s ear and healed him.
Then Jesus spoke to the leading priests, the captains of the Temple guard, and the elders who had come for him. “Am I some dangerous revolutionary,” he asked, “that you come with swords and clubs to arrest me? Why didn’t you arrest me in the Temple? I was there every day. But this is your moment, the time when the power of darkness reigns.”
Prayer: Lord Jesus – When I find myself overwhelmed by betrayal and darkness… remind me that, in the end, you win. Amen.
Spiritual: “What do you think about Jesus” (He’s alright)
The Peanut Gallery 