URGENT PRAYERS/PETITIONS:
Same -Sex "Marriage"- PLEASE PRAY WITH ME (every day untill the decision is revealed sometime in June) THAT THE SUPREME COURT WILL VOTE TO UPHOLD THE 2 LAWS REVIEWED SUPPORTING A TRADITIONAL DEFINITION OF MARRIAGE.. PRAY that the Court will resist any pressure to MAKE new law based on "cultural trends." PRAY as though the very future of the institution of the family is at stake because it is. PRAY for the sake of possibly millions of children, and for our country if it is to continue to be shown any more favor by our Heavenly Father, who I promise you will be very displeased if homosexual marriage is legalized; "GOD IS NOT [TO BE] MOCKED..." - (Gal. 6:7) - Stan [Be sure to check out my brief essay at post #478.]
American Pastor Saeed Held Prisoner in Iran - June 5th Update - "Saeed's Wife Uses UN Speech to 'Plant Gospel'," by George Thomas, CBN News Sr. Reporter, June 05, 2013, http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/world/2013/June/Saeeds-Wife-Uses-UN-Speech-to-Plant-Gospel/?cpid=EU_CBNNEWSPM_2013_156"Prayers from Prison: American Pastor Held in Iran Releases Letter," May 22, 2013; http://www.presidentialprayerteam.com/Prayerwatch?pw=1458"...Abedini has been held at the brutal prison for 238 days, enduring long stints in solitary confinement, and, according to his supporters, beatings and torture at the hands of his jailers and fellow inmates. For months, he has been suffering from serious injuries, including internal bleeding from beatings with no proper medical attention, according to his family and attorneys."(Sources: Fox News, Assemblies of God website) As the Lord leads, please PRAY: =1) For the imprisoned Pastor Abedini, and for those Iranians who tend to his needs in prison to treat him more humanely. 2) For his family in Boise, Idaho. and their efforts to involve the U.S. State Department in securing Pastor Abedini’s release. And 3) For the impact of his witness upon believers and non-believers, in America and across the world. And if you have not yet, join the over 600,000 worldwide who have signed the petition asking for his release at www.SaveSaeed.org
[June 17 NOTE: With national elections now over, PRAY that God would move the national govenment to finally release Pastor Seed (along with other unjustly held prisoners) as they tend to do as post-elections signs of good fatih.- Stan]
"Prayer Alert: Pastor Irani Imprisoned with Saeed," CBNNews.com; Friday, June 14, 2013 http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/world/2013/June/Prayer-Alert-Pastor-Irani-Imprisoned-with-Saeed/?cpid=EU_CWN_2013_165 According to Truth Ministries, Pastor Saeed Abedini is not alone in Iran's infamous Evin Prison. Officials say Benham Irani has been in jail longer than Pastor Saeed and is also in need of urgent prayer. Irani was convicted for committing crimes against Iran's national security after holding house church services and leading many Iranian Muslims to Christ. He was arrested and tried twice: first in December 2006 and again April 2010. Now Truth Ministries reports that "in the past year he has been beaten by prisoners under the watchful eye of prison authorities. As a result he is beginning to lose his eyesight, has what seems to be untreated Inflammatory Bowel Disease, is barely able to speak and has trouble walking." He's also suffering from internal bleeding and a painful skin condition. To find out how you can help both Irani Benham and Pastor Abedini, please sign the petition at : https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/take-steps-our-allies-and-un-put-pressure-iranian-government-release-pastor-behnam-irani/7px5JR82
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"Man Up! Men Urged to End Abortion's War on Women," by Paul Strand, CBN News Washington Sr. Correspondent, June 14, 2013 http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2013/June/Man-Up-Men-Urged-to-End-Abortions-War-on-Women/[NOTE This article brings to mind one of the two pro-life bumper stickers I've had on my present car for the roughly 10 years I've owned it. I I've always believed that bumer stickers are like a billboard and have never hesitated to have stickers that say provacative things. My favorite sticker says: "Real Men Do Not Force Women To Abort."]
Women may giet abortions, but without men, there wouldn't be any abortions -- or sex trafficking, or pornography. These are almost exclusively areas where male users create female victims. Now some men say it's time for males to step up and put an end to these things, to end this war on women.
Paul Cole leads the Christian Men's Network, which specializes in mentoring men. He says many abortions happen because of men who refuse to step up and father the lives they've created.
"They're not becoming real men. They're staying childish," he told CBN News, "narcissistic, selfish, childish men who want their own way regardless of what it costs anyone else."
Get-Out-of-Jail-Free Card? - Brian Fisher, president of Online for Life (www.onlineforlife.org), says abortion is the perfect convenience for such boyish men who desire to satisfy their sexual urges with no danger of commitment. "Abortion is the ultimate get-out-of-jail-free card for men who want to be sexually promiscuous," Fisher stated. Cole pointed out, "The vast majority of abortions are paid for by men. Why is that? Because they don't want to accept responsibility for what they created."
Fisher points out modern culture and courts have played right into these men's hands by declaring abortion is all about a woman's right to choose and men have no legal right to be involved in that choice. According to Fisher, that means "men can sleep with whoever they want to and if the woman gets pregnant, not only does the man have no responsibility, he has no legal right to have responsibility." But for all the "right to choose" rhetoric, most abortive women feel they have no choice. "More than 60 percent of women are coerced into having an abortion, or are not informed properly," Fisher stated. "So when we talk about this freedom to choose, the reality is there is no freedom to choose. They feel like they have no other choice."
Cole added, "My heart breaks for the women who've been forced to make that decision or have had to make that decision because of the immaturity and childishness and selfishness of a man." So men like Cole and Fisher want to do something about it.
'Man Up and Get Off the Porn' - In his book, Abortion: the Ultimate Exploitation of Women, Fisher advocates "manning up" to fight abortion. One major way may seem surprising."Get off the porn," Fisher said. The author points to decades of research that show the results of pornography. "Multiple sexual partners, adultery, wrecked marriages, issues with long-term commitment," Fisher stated. "All those things have been extremely well-documented. Well, those are all the seeds of unplanned pregnancy." Cole cites research that shows for every 10 men in the average church, five have a major problem with pornography.
He believes mentoring young people and teaching young men to be sexually pure and responsible can help control this sexual chaos. "We've got to start when young men are 10, 11, 12 years old, and start talking to them about who you are as a man," Cole said. Fisher added, "That could be a courageous father talking to his teenage sons about not only pornography or not only unplanned pregnancy, but abortion and the fact that God has created us to protect life, not to destroy life."
Cole shared how a program tied to his ministry slashed the 33 percent AIDS rate in Uganda. "They began to train young men and women, 11, 12, 13, 14 years old, what it is to be sexually pure, what it is to be married to one person," Cole said. "They began to meet in all the churches, all the schools."
This program introduced all over Uganda is called Glovimo: the GLOry of VIrginity MOvement.
"Today in Uganda, the rate of AIDS is 6.4 percent," Cole pointed out. "It is the only nation in the continent of Africa that has reversed the rate of AIDS."
Online for Life - On another front, the men who organized Fisher's Online for Life scan the Internet for men and women looking online for abortion services. Then this pro-life group hits those abortion-seekers with ads for pro-life pregnancy centers. "If they're on Yahoo and they're searching for an abortion clinic, we might show up with an ad that's an alternative," Fisher explained. "And if they click on the ad and they call the pregnancy center that we're working with, now we have an opportunity to speak with somebody who in many cases has already scheduled the abortion."
Fisher says if that person or couple actually comes into the pregnancy center, "they usually have an ultrasound, which ultimately is proof-positive that what is growing inside that mother is a viable human being." This work by Online for Life has saved more than 900 babies over the last two years. Fisher points out places like those pregnancy centers could sure use the help of pro-life men."If a man would just give a few hours a week to talk to the father of an unborn child and say 'Let me help you walk through this. We'll get you through it together and at the end of the day, you're going to be sitting there with a beautiful baby in your arms and it's going to change your life for the better.' That's the kind of man that we need to step up and get in the game," Fisher said.
'Stop Being Passive' - Beyond that, Fisher implores men to not be passive if their relationship faces an unexpected pregnancy and the woman is contemplating an abortion."A passive answer, a non-answer is a 'go get an abortion' answer," Fisher insisted. "And, unfortunately, many men who presume that that's the supportive answer are in fact, number one, threatening their child with a death sentence." "But, number two, (they're) showing the female in their life they just don't care enough to protect either the woman or the child," he said.
For those men feeling guilt and regret after an abortion, Fisher recommends they talk about it, especially on Web forums like his group's AbortionMemorial.com. That's what a man named Jeffery did, writing to his unborn child via the website. He talked about paying for the abortion that decades ago had killed that child. "It is now 31 years later," Jeffery wrote. "The hardest part is knowing you felt great pain the moment when they killed you in your mother's womb. You were innocent and totally helpless. I did not protect you. I sacrificed you for my own convenience. The truth is your earthly father failed you." In his book, Fisher talks about a friend of his whose sexual antics led to three abortions before he became a Christian, repented and married.
But then, after having one child, his wife told him she was aborting their second child no matter what he said.
"He had no legal recourse, was unable to have an attorney help him, had no option," Fisher said of his friend. "And she aborted the second child, and so he for years has dealt with the suffering and grief, not only of the first three abortions that he was responsible for, but for the one in a marital context that he had absolutely no ability to stop." The abortion ended up wrecking their marriage and they ultimately divorced.
Swaying the Culture - Fisher told CBN News every man or woman who regrets the abortions in their lives needs to shout out about it. He said, "If we can collect tens of thousands of stories from men and women who say 'Look, if I had to do this over again, I never would have aborted my child,' that speaks to the culture." He believes the weight of all that regret and sorrow could sway the nation. Meanwhile, men's ministries like Cole's Christian Men's Network are allying themselves with activist groups battling sexual trafficking, pornography and abortion.
Both Cole and Fisher exhort men to grow up, man up and throw themselves into the fight -- because only men can end this war on women, and because one more baby is being aborted every 25 seconds."We cannot sit by the TV, drinking our beer, watching sports, thinking that this is okay," Fisher admonished. "It's not okay."
[bold emphasis mine]
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