THE ONLY TRUE GOD

SISTERS IN PEACE

IN A LAND WHERE PEOPLE HAVE GROWN SO TERRIBLY FAR APART, A PALESTINIAN MUSLIM AND AN ISRAELI JEW GROW UP TOGETHER.

     Most weekends you can find Adi Frish in a neighborhood coffee shop with her best friend, Laila Najjar.  You might even think they're sisters.  Both have long, dark hair.  They finish each other's sentences.  They laugh at jokes that no on else quite understands.  Nothing very unusual.  Except that Adi is an Israeli Jew and Laila is a Palestinian Muslim.  They grew up within blocks of each other in Israel, in a village midway between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem known to Jews as Neve Shalom and to Palestinians as Wahat al-Salam.  Adi is 22, Laila is 21.  All their lives their people have been at war.  Things are worse today than ever.  From the Golan Heights to the Sinai, from the Mediterranean to the Dead Sea, there are car bombings and shootings.  Things are different in Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salem, which in both Hebrew and Arabic means "Oasis of Peace."  Jewish and Palestinian families settled there in the 1970s with the idea of showing the rest of the Middle East, and the world, that Jews and Palestinians could live in harmony.  Adi and Laila's parents were among the village founders.  The two friends were born there.  Living together, learning about each other's culture, language, history and faith, has helped them understand and accept each other.  Adi joins Laila's family for Ramadan.  Laila celebrated Passover with Adi.  The two know everything there is to know about each other.  Still, events in the world outside their village sometimes challenged their friendship.  In 2000, at the time of the second intifada, Adi joined the Israeli army.  It was her time to serve.  Telling Laila was the hardest thing she'd had to do.  "For all our lives, you and I have promoted peace," Laila said to her. "The army represents everything we've fought against."  "I joined to serve Israel and protect the peace," Adi said.  It wasn't the first disagreement they'd had.  But it was the most serious.  "I don't want to lose you as my sister, my friend," Adi said.  Laila didn't want that either.  Adi and Laila had been taught that people of faith can settle their differences peacefully by listening to the other's opinions.  "We are all human beings," Adi said.  "To have peace, we have to understand the other side better.  We need to communicate and listen."  She sat Laila down for a talk.  Adi reminded her they'd always been able to separate their friendship from the distrust and politics that swirl around them.  Laila agreed. "I accept your decision to enlist," she said.  "but let's not speak about it again.  It will be too difficult for me."  Boot camp wore Adi down, both phyically and emotionally.  Every night she returned to her tent exhausted, yet unable to sleep.  She still wasn't sure what she'd done was right.  One night, needing reassurance, she phoned her best friend.  "I'm sorry to bring up the army," Adi said, "But I need to talk."  With tears rolling down her cheeks, she told Laila how difficult the training was and how stressed and tired she felt.  Laila was silent for a moment.  Then she said, "I don't necessarily want to know about the Israeli army, Adi, but I always want to know about you."  The fwo friends talked through the night.  They'd discovered that love was bigger than anything that divided them and the way to peace was through friendship-one on one.

THE DIVINE CONTRAST

Children Taught to Prefer Death to Life

In the latest bulletin released by the Palestinian Media Watch organization, we read a chilling account about the "death culture" in Gaza. A Palestinian reporter wrote the article focusing on Hamas but don't think this "culture" is limited to Hamas. Abbas' Fatah organization holds to the same convictions, as do other terror groups.

Ghassan Zaqtan, a Palestinian journalist, wrote the article which appeared n the June 18 edition of the PA's Al-Ayyam newspaper. I quote just part of the article - it's more than enough to disturb anyone with basic human values!

Speaking of the Hamas takeover of Gaza, he wrote: "We knew that they would do it, especially in Gaza, where a mother brushes her young son's hair at 7:00, so that he will be killed at 7:30, and where the children learn that death is preferable to life! We knew that they would do this, it was clear to us: with language overflowing with the rhetoric of death and the norms of killing, in the religious rulings [fatwas] and in Friday and holiday sermons."

And, "The concept of shahada for him [the child] means belonging to the homeland, from a religious point of view. Sacrifice for his homeland. Achieving shahada in order to reach Paradise and to meet his God. This is the best. We also teach our children to protect the homeland, belonging and to reach shahada."

"The result of such virulent PA indoctrination is apparent," Marcus and Crook conclude, "when listening to the interview on PA TV with two 11-year-old Palestinian girls talking about shahada and describing it as a primary ideal and personal goal. They explain that 'all Palestinian children' view shahada as more worthwhile than living, because of its promised grand Afterlife."

Click below to view one of several video clips of this kind of indoctrination of children. Sickening.

Teaching Children to Love Death

"We are of God:  he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us.  Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error."  "Beloved, let us love one another:  for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.  He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.  In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.  Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.  Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.  No man hath seen God at any time.  If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.  Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit.  And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world.  Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God.  And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us.  God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him."  "If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar:  for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?  And This commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also."  1 John 4:6-16, 20-21.

"Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.  But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;  That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven:  for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust."  Jesus Christ in Matthew 5:43-45.

We need Jesus Christ.

PEACE IS SURELY COMING

     "And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the LORD's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it.  And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths:  for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.  And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people:  and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks:  nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.  O house of Jacob, come ye, and let us walk in the light of the LORD."  Isaiah 2:2-5

No doubt in my mind, it's coming.  There is no power in heaven or earth that can prevent the will of Jehovah from coming to pass.  May the LORD bless you, and keep you.  May we submit to His teachings.

THE LORD'S WAY. IT DOESN'T GET ANY BETTER THAN THIS.

I am so tired of man's ideas of the way to God.  What does Jesus say?

Step 1:  ADMIT.  You must realize that you need to be saved.  You must admit your need.  How many sins did it take for Adam and Eve to be excluded forever from the Garden of Eden?  Just one.  Likewise, it only takes one sin to keep us out of God's heaven.  And if we are honest, we all know that we have committed many sins against the Lord.  Romans 3:23 tells the truth about us.  "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."

Step 2:  ACKNOWLEDGE.  You must recognize and acknowledge that you need a Savior and that Jesus is the Savior you need.  The Bible makes it clear that you cannot save yourself.  No amount of good works, effort, church attendance, or ritual can take away your sin.  "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;  not as a result of works, so that no one may boast"  (Ephesians 2:8-9).  Jesus is the Son of God who died in your place on the cross and rose again on the third day.  You can only be saved from your sins through Him.  He is God's only way to heaven (John 14:6).

Step 3:  ACCEPT.  You must receive or accept Jesus Christ as your personal Savior from sin.  It's not enough just to know that you are a sinner, that you need a Savior, and that Jesus is the Savior you need.  You must personally receive Him by Faith.  You must accept Christ and what He has done for you.  "But as many as received Him(Jesus), to them He gave the right to become children of God" (John 1:12).

Eight practical, scriptural ways to stay alert, be ready, and grow and mature in your Christian life.

1.  If you have never followed the Lord in believer's baptism, then you need to obey the Lord's command to be baptized in water (Matthew 28:19).  Water baptism is to salvation what a wedding ring is to a marriage, It's not what makes you married, but rather it's the outward symbol that you are married.

2.  Put away any known sin in your life.  Turn from it today.  Commit to being a pure vessel for the Lord to use (2 Timothy 2:20-22).

3.  Confess any known sin in your life, so you can be restored in fellowship with the Lord (1 John 1:9).  You can never lose your relationship with the Lord once you accept Christ, but you can fall out of fellowship with Him.  Confession restores that interrupted fellowship.

4.  Surrender your life each day to the control of the Holy Spirit.  Now that you are a believer in Christ, the Holy Spirit has come to permanently indwell your life, but he will only fill you or control you as you yield to His will for your life (Ephesians 5:18).

5.  Keep the lines of communication open between you and your heavenly Father in daily prayer (1 Thessalonians 5:17).

6.  Find a good Bible-teaching, loving church to attend and support (Hebrews 10:25).

7.  Use the gifts and abilities the Lord has given you to serve others (Matthew 25:14-30).

8.  Look for, and live in light of, Christ's coming each day (Titus 2:13).

When you receive Christ, God promises to give you the precious gift of eternal life.  "He who believes in the Son has eternal life" (John 3:36).  A simple, sincere prayer to God, expressing your desire for salvation through Jesus Christ, will bring immediate and eternal salvation to you.  God yearns after His sons and daughters with an unfathomable, pure, and eternal Love.  Let us gladly receive this Love.

I'll see you in Heaven!

(Thanks to God through His Eternal Word and Mark Hitchcock through his book "Iran, The Coming Crisis" for these thoughts)