Nothing Withheld
For Jehovah God is a sun and a shield:
Jehovah will give grace and glory;
No good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.
–Psalm 84. 11.
Truly God follows us with encouragements: let him not lose his blessing upon us! They come in season, and with all the advantages of heartening, as if God should say, “Up and be doing, and I will stand by you and help you!” There is nothing to be feared but our own sin and sloth.
–Oliver Cromwell.
Sun of my soul, thou Saviour dear,
It is not night if thou be near;
O may no earthborn cloud arise
To hide thee from thy servants’ eyes.
–John Keble.
Mother Brings Baby Back to Life With Two Hours Of Loving Cuddles After Doctors Pronounce Him Dead. | Pakalert Press
This is an amazing story of the miracles of life that God gives us and the truly wonderful way that He works.
by TRUTHER
It was a final chance to say goodbye for grievingmother Kate Ogg after doctors gave up hope ofsaving her premature baby.
She tearfully told her lifeless son – born at 27 weeks weighing 2lb – how much she loved him and cuddled him tightly, not wanting to let him go.
Although little Jamie’s twin sister Emily had been delivered successfully, doctors had given Mrs Oggthe news all mothers dread – that after 20 minutes of battling to get her son to breathe, they had declared him dead.
Having given up on a miracle, Mrs Ogg unwrapped the baby from his blanket and held him against her skin. And then an extraordinary thing happened.
Awful moment: Kate and David clasp each other and their son Jamie, circled, after being told he did not survive the birth. They were given the child to say their goodbyes but then, miraculously, two hours later he began to show signs of life.
After two hours of being hugged, touched and spoken to by his mother, the little boy began showing signs of life.
At first, it was just a gasp for air that was dismissed by doctors as a reflex action.
But then the startled mother fed him a little breast milk on her finger and he started breathing normally.
‘I thought, “Oh my God, what’s going on”,’ said Mrs Ogg.
‘A short time later he opened his eyes. It was a miracle. Then he held out his hand and grabbed my finger.
‘He opened his eyes and moved his head from side to side. The doctor kept shaking his head saying, “I don’t believe it, I don’t believe it”.’ Read the rest of this wonderful story at Mother Brings Baby Back to Life With Two Hours Of Loving Cuddles After Doctors Pronounce Him Dead. | Pakalert Press.
Welcome to a New Voice
We are pleased to have Shannon from Revelations in Writing, join both The Christian Gazette and Loopyloo’s. If you haven’t read her blog before, we have featured her posts here a few times and it is a great honor that she has accepted our invitation. Please do take time to welcome her here. God bless you all!
Related articles
Becoming Content With How God Created Us
Matt Appling
Matt Appling is a former child artist turned art teacher, pastor and writer. His work is helping children and adults in creative and spiritual pursuits.
His first book, Life After Art, was released by Moody Publishers April 2013 and explores the intersection of life, faith, and becoming the people God made us to be. Matt can be found every week at his blog.
Can I confess something?
I struggle with contentment. That one word is the probably the most elusive in my life. Everyone has something that constantly evades and escapes them in their life. Contentment is mine.
It isn’t that I’m not thankful. No, this is a struggle that makes me wonder if I’m doing enough, if God is happy with me, if my life means something. It makes my brain click on in the middle of the night and says, “Wake up, Matt! You’re a failure!” No joke. My brain thinks 3 am is the best time to dissect all of my life decisions.
It isn’t that I’m not content with my life or my family.
I struggle to be content with myself.
And the more I confess it, the more I discover that I’m not alone. I find good friends at church who are secretly afraid that they have wasted their lives. I find people at work or new acquaintances online who just don’t think they’re good enough.
In fact, I don’t have to go any further than the art classroom where I teach to find all the discontentment in the world.
Let’s see, who’s coming in? Fifth graders. Perfect.
These fifth graders are so different than they were in first grade or kindergarten. Their cares and worries have multiplied. They no longer look at themselves through the lens of how God sees them, but through the lens of how their peers see them. Everything is image.
And for such big kids, they seem so helpless. Not like the five-year-olds.
The boys don’t think they are talented enough. Some of them scribble around on the paper, deflecting attention from their perceived inadequacies by performing below their talents.
And the girls…the girls are much more verbal. They put themselves down so much, it breaks my heart to hear them. The girls at this age spend so much time putting themselves down, criticizing themselves. Their souls are hunched over, weighed down with self-doubt and every kind of anxiety imaginable.
And in a few short years, they will be adults like you and me, still struggling to be content with themselves, still lacking the confidence to go and act boldly in the world because they don’t think they are good enough.
I ask them to stop working.
“Where does all of our talent come from?” I ask.
“God,” they answer.
“God,” they answer.
“If God made us, and gave us all of the talents that He wanted us to have…” I pause a little, “How much sense can it make to complain about how God made us, to tell God that He didn’t do a good enough job?”
And suddenly, I realize that I’m preaching a little sermon that I desperately need to hear myself. Another one. Really, every little message and pep talk and sermon I’m giving the kids is something that I’ve forgotten how to live and am trying to re-learn, one baby step at a time. Along with these children, I’m trying to slowly realize that we have enough, we are enough. We are exactly what God wanted us to be. We just have to discover how God actually created us in the first place.
Reaching that discovery of how God created us is what Life After Art is all about. It’s the journey I’m taking, and I hope you’ll take it with me. Let’s recover the life and faith we were created to live, by rediscovering the children we used to be.
A Thousand Years
6 Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.
7 And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison,
Revelations 20:6-7
The First Ressurection
What an interesting time that we live in! Not a good time as we see more and more persecution of the followers of Christ across the world. And yet a time that must occur in order to fulfill the prophecies laid out in the Bible. And yet with the horror of seeing those who are killed, we must as well remember the promise. Always looking to God and not to man, to the future and not to relive and renew the past. What has gone before is not what He has plans for in the future and it is the future that we desire to be a part of.
English: Resurrection of Christ (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Revelation 20
Good News Translation (GNT)
4 Then I saw thrones, and those who sat on them were given the power to judge. I also saw the souls of those who had been executed because they had proclaimed the truth that Jesus revealed and the word of God. They had not worshiped the beast or its image, nor had they received the mark of the beast on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and ruled as kings with Christ for a thousand years. 5 (The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were over.) This is the first raising of the dead. 6 Happy and greatly blessed are those who are included in this first raising of the dead. The second death has no power over them; they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and they will rule with him for a thousand years.
UN urges people to eat insects to fight world hunger | KurzweilAI
While I admit that I am a bit of a coward when it comes to trying different foods, I am always amazed at evidence of God’s consideration in everything that exists on the earth. God provides in amazing ways and knowing that there are options like this for the hungry of the world just reinforces the word of God and His promise to provide for us. King James Version
But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore: ye are of more value than many sparrows.
Luke 12:6-8
UN urges people to eat insects to fight world hunger | KurzweilAI.
The report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organizationsays that eating insects could help boost nutrition and reduce pollution, BBC News reports.
It notes than over 2 billion people worldwide already supplement their diet with insects.
Wasps, beetles and other insects are currently “underutilized” as food for people and livestock, the report says.
The authors point out that insects are nutritious, with high protein, fat and mineral content. Read the rest at UN urges people to eat insects to fight world hunger | KurzweilAI.
Who & What Can Help
Be it unto me according to thy word” (Luke 1:38).
Her words can guide us when we too are puzzled by what is impending or unfolding in our lives. When we cannot explain all that is happening to us or around us.
***
One cannot study the scriptures long, then, without developing a special appreciation for those scriptures which “spread themselves over all occasions.” These scriptures and their companions need to be pondered regularly because they are sobering reminders not only of the framework of this mortal experience—the purposes of life and the frame of reference within which we are to live out our lives—but also of its very center: Heavenly Father’s plan of salvation, the atonement of His Son Jesus Christ, and the manner in which we should cope with the tutoring experience of mortal life.
Pentagon Taps Anti-Christian Extremist for Religious Tolerance Policy
Pentagon Taps Anti-Christian Extremist for Religious Tolerance Policy.
“Today, we face incredibly well-funded gangs of fundamentalist Christian monsters who terrorize their fellow Americans by forcing their weaponized and twisted version of Christianity upon their helpless subordinates in our nation’s armed forces.”
Those words were recently written by Mikey Weinstein, founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), in a column he wrote for the Huffington Post. Weinstein will be a consultant to the Pentagon to develop new policies on religious tolerance, including a policy for court-martialing military chaplains who share the Christian Gospel during spiritual counseling of American troops.
Weinstein decries what he calls the “virulent religious oppression” perpetrated by conservative Christians, whom he refers to as “monstrosities” and “pitiable unconstitutional carpetbaggers,” comparing them to “bigots” in the Deep South during the civil rights era.
He cites Dr. James Dobson—the famous Christian founder of Focus on the Family—as “illustrating the extremist, militant nature of these virulently homophobic organizations’ rhetorically-charged propaganda.” Regarding those who teach orthodox Christian beliefs from the Bible, Weinstein concludes, “Let’s call these ignoble actions what they are: the senseless and cowardly squallings of human monsters.”
Weinstein then endorses the ultra-left Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), who publishes a list of “hate groups.” Alongside truly deplorable organizations like the KKK, the SPLC’s list includes a host of traditional Christian organizations (for their support of traditional marriage) and Tea Party organizations (for supporting limited government). Weinstein says SPLC correctly labels them all as “hate groups.”
Floyd Lee Corkins—the first person ever convicted of domestic terrorism in federal court under the laws of Washington, D.C.—told the FBI that he chose his intended shooting spree targets from the SPLC website’s map. Corkins was arrested at the offices of the Family Research Council (FRC) after shooting a security guard in August 2012. His court documents state that Corkins intended to kill as many people as possible.
Weinstein also supports Lt. Col. Jack Rich, the Army officer who wrote to subordinate officers that soldiers who hold traditional Christian beliefs agreeing with organizations on SPLC’s “hate group” list are incompatible with “Army values” and should be carefully watched and excluded from military service.
According to Weinstein, “We should as a nation effusively applaud Lt. Col. Rich.” He adds that the nation should “venture further” than Rich’s recommendations, saying, “We MUST vigorously support the continuing efforts to expose pathologically anti-gay, Islamaphobic, and rabidly intolerant agitators for what they are: die-hard enemies of the United States Constitution. Monsters, one and all. To do anything less would be to roll out a red carpet to those who would usher in a blood-drenched, draconian era of persecutions, nationalistic militarism, and superstitious theocracy.”
Many media outlets are silent on this disturbing new alliance between fanatical secularists and leaders in the Pentagon appointed by President Barack Obama and Secretary Chuck Hagel, under which the U.S. military would officially consult with someone with such foaming-at-the-mouth passionate hostility toward traditional Christians, including Evangelicals and devout Catholics. The military—America’s most heroic and noble institution—includes countless people of faith, and this represents a radical departure from the U.S. military’s warm embrace of people of faith in its ranks.
Yet the little coverage this story is getting is positive, such as this Washington Post columnthat somehow manages not to carry any of these frightening quotes from Weinstein and instead actually endorses the Pentagon’s meeting with him. Sally Quinn’s Post column also approvingly quotes MRFF Advisory Board member Larry Wilkerson as saying, “Sexual assault and proselytizing, according to Wilkerson, ‘are absolutely destructive of the bonds that keep soldiers together.’”
Did you get that? They say having someone share the Christian gospel with you is akin to being raped. Weinstein makes sure there are no doubts, being quoted by the Post as adding, “This is a national security threat. What is happening [aside from sexual assault] is spiritual rape. And what the Pentagon needs is to understand is that it is sedition and treason. It should be punished.” Read the rest at: Pentagon Taps Anti-Christian Extremist for Religious Tolerance Policy.
Bicycle Missions
I posted the other day about Pastor Stephen McKay and put up a page to give you an idea of what he does and who he is. I would like to take the time today to tell you a little something about one of the things that he is raising money for. It is not for his own ministry, he has support for that, it is to help others in their ministry. He is doing that with bicycles.
Why bicycles? Pastor McKay explained it this way, last year when was in Tanzania he discovered that the local Pastors were having to walk 20 miles and more at times to spread the gospel. Either that or if they were blessed with a bicycle, travel that way. He decided that it would be his mission in part to provide them bicycles in order to spread the gospel easier and to be able to be a blessing to these Pastors. God has worked wonderfully. Pastor McKay was back in Tanzania a couple of weeks ago and reported this:
“We arrived at Assedi’s apartment where we will be staying, and fellowshipped for a while.We then headed to downtown mwanza to exchange money into Tanzanian shillings for the week stay we will be here, and also to purchase bicycles for the pastors here.
A few months before I left I began raising money to purchase bicycles for evangelists who travel and preach the Gospel. I was able to raise $1500 and with that we were able to purchase 17 bicycles in total for them. The brothers here told me that buying a pastor or an evangelist a bicycle is the equivalent of purchasing him a Cadillac. They value them greater than we can imagine, and use them to spread the Gospel far and wide. We walked into a small bike shop and negotiated with the owner on the price. She finally came to a final price of $81.00 each. Here’s a picture of a few partly assembled.
Because we ordered 17 of them, they will have to assemble them over the next day or so and then we will have them delivered on the last day of the conference. It’s going to be a great day!
“
Would you be interested in contributing to the spreading of the gospel through raising money for bicycles? If you would please contact Vessel Of Honor Ministries here: VOHM
This is a contact page and Pastor McKay will get back to you when he can, but I can assure you that it is a worthy ministry and you will be helping to spread the gospel in a part of the world that greatly needs it. God bless you!
Welcome to Deborah
Loopyloo’s has been pretty silent for awhile, and I am beginning to repost here. I also want to welcome Deborah from the blog Ye Shall Know Me By My Fruits. She has honored us here by accepting an invitation to write here as well as at her own blog. She will be putting up a post when she is ready and I hope that you will all give her a warm welcome. God bless you!
Update on Posting
Until I can get I can get another site set up I will be posting at The Christian Gazette and A Needed Word along with posts at Grumpy’s Opinions. I hope all my loyal followers will read these, as I intend to keep my other sites up regardless of what happens with Loopyloo’s. If you haven’t checked out the other sites, please do and God bless you all! The Christian Gazette and A Needed Word are both wordpress blogs so you can just click follow and read them along with your other follows. Updates from Pastor Kerry Mauldin will be at the Christian Gazette, and is currently in India and I have a new post up for him today! Joy Among the Gypsies is his newest letter. A Needed word is simply a short daily (mostly daily) needed word. Grumpy’s Opinions is a daily news magazine and opinion digest that has many wonderful authors and is well worth your time if you have never read it. Please do check it out.
