unborn child died yesterday

[hazlnut]

GODLIFECULTURECURRENTSUBSCRIBEMAGAZINEPODCAST

4 Things Christians Need to Remember About Gun Control
It's time for Christians to examine the bottom line on firearms.

BY BRIAN KAMMERZELT POLITICS / CURRENT JANUARY 17, 2013

Editor’s Note: In light of the Senate’s decision to strike down a bipartisan proposal to extend background checks on gun purchases—a proposal that had the support of 54 senators, 80% of the American public and President Obama—we’ve decided to rerun an article published in January on the complex issue of guns, the regulation of them and how Christians should wrestle with this issue.

January 19 is the controversial “first national gun appreciation day.”

As a lifelong gun owner from northern Wisconsin, I appreciate my guns. They hold a lot of personal value to me as a part of our family traditions of hunting and marksmanship. I’m proud of the legacy of responsible gun ownership that has been passed down to me.

For the past five years, I have also lived in downtown Chicago, working alongside others who are combating the epidemic of gun violence in this city—men and women with stray bullet holes in their homes and car doors who regularly lose children in their ministry care to violence. I have stood in candlelight vigils with mothers who have lost children and have listened to their pain.

I know something has to be done.

Despite gun-related violence and deaths being down overall, in a city with some of the toughest gun laws in the country, gun violence is up 25 percent, with over 450 school-aged children having been shot (63 fatally) last year.

This is not some rare catastrophe. Senseless gun related violence is apresent reality here in my city and others.

This past Wednesday, President Obama unveiled a comprehensive gun-safety plan aimed at reducing gun violence. The rhetoric is heated, and sides are being chosen.

I do not want to debate. I want to stop the murder of innocents from ever happening. Regardless of your view on guns, I know you do too. Where do we begin?

1. Love God.
Clearly, God in His holiness abhors killing. This means engaging the issue with an extreme bias toward the preservation of all life and the reduction of violence by any means.

Do we love God more than our legal rights? More than our possessions? More than our patriotism? More than our own safety? Are we being “careful that the exercise of [our] rights does not become a stumbling block to the weak (1 Cor 8:9)”?

Now, I have made no mention of the implications of those questions to the issue of guns, but if you feel a twinge of defensiveness or pride already, I would challenge you to pray about that.

2. Seek first the Kingdom.
Christians are to be about the work of announcing, building and representing an entirely new kind of reality here and now, on earth as it is in heaven. Our view is to be extraordinarily invested in the immediate concerns of this present reality.

Matthew 6:33-34: “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

This means engaging the issue of gun control must be directed toward stopping violence today—not primarily toward defending against a potential future where certain freedoms might be more restricted. Concern about the future of America must not prevent us from addressing the brokenness of today.

3. Love others.
The Church should be so invested in the lives of others, especially the “least of these” in society, that when someone exhibits unstable behavior or are threatened by violence, they are surrounded with biblical love and ensured the help they need.

Do we love our “rights” more than we love our neighbor? Are we willing to become neighbors to those surrounded by violence?

Do not doubt for a second that if more of us left our bubbles, abandoned culture wars, locked up our guns safe behind our legal right to own them and brought the physical presence of Christ into the communities stricken by violence, we would see dramatically less devastation—by gun or otherwise. Not a single new law would need to be passed, and the 2nd Amendment would be safer than ever.

 

[emilynghiem]

It's more than that. Many Christians pray and do all the right things, yet this isn't enough to cure mental and criminal illness, addiction and abuse behind violence, murder, rape and other crimes.

What even the Christian denominations have been divided over
is the process of Spiritual Healing that has been used to help people
heal of cancer, schizophrenia, and other physical and mental disorders,
including severe addictions and criminal sickness deemed incureable otherwise.

If you look up the statements by David Berkowitz, after he was healed of his criminal obsession, by which he tortured and killed people under that state of mind or influence of complete sickness of the worst kind, now that he is free of this, he wants other people to get this same help BEFORE they harm or kill themselves or others. Also look up the books written by Dr. Scott Peck on his observations of pathologically ill or schizophrenic patients, "Glimpses of the Devil" and "People of the Lie."

Peck also came to the conclusion that applying the methods used by Christians in spiritual healing,deliverance and exorcism proved effective in removing the demonic obsessions reported and witnessed in these patients, and permitted them to regain their will and mind so they could comply with medical treatment to undergo normal therapy. If they got help in time, they had a chance for complete cure and recovery. One of his patients was able to return to a normal life, but the other died of complications from physical conditions brought on by years of abuse her entire adult life because she didn't receive treatment early on to stop the self-destructive behavior.

I personally know a couple of friends with severe addictions who got help to return to normal by going through spiritual healing with a Christian counselor who specializes in healing generational ills by going into the family history and praying to forgive and remove any past blockages that caused the abusive or addictive conditions. Neither of my friends is Christian or pro Christian, but they came from an anti-religious right background, and one friend is more atheist though he identifies as agnostic or neutral. So going through spiritual healing does NOT convert people into Christianity, that's not the purpose. The purpose is to receive the healing under the authority of Christ Jesus to remove the demonic energy and influences. But people go back to who they normally are after they receive healing. That's what I've seen of how it works, to heal the person in spirit so the mind and body follow.

The best resources I recommend for further medical research studies and development are
* Drs. Francis and Judith MacNutt www.christianhealingmin.org
Dr. MacNutt's book on HEALING was revised in 1999 to include a medical study funded by the Templeton Foundation, where the team methods he uses and teaches were proven effective in improvements recorded in Rheumatoid Arthritis patients which were attributed to the healing prayer.
* Dr. Phillip Goldfedder www.healingisyours.com As a neurosurgeon, he witnessed the process of spiritual healing, and once it was proven to him by demonstration he saw for himself, he began practicing and teaching this full time as he found it more effective that surgery which only addressed the physical but not the spiritual causes of people's health conditions.
* Olivia Reiner, the friend I recommend in Houston who has helped everyone I have referred to her. She has a website at www.listentothecriesofthechildren.org and also on facebook, that is co-ordinated by another friend J.C. Spencer who takes a scientific approach to medical conditions by addressing the sugars that can speed up cell recovery. So together, the methods she uses focus on healing the spiritual causes for blocks to natural healing; and he focuses on the cell restoration by applying the natural sugars for each condition that needs repair and regeneration.

In general, just praying is not enough to address deeper roots of sickness in people and society. it's like taking vitamin C or drinking orange juice to prevent most colds or illness; but that's not enough when you are dealing with Ebola or AIDS that requires deeper intervention.

With criminal illness that is passed down generationally where people are "born sick", this requires very deep spiritual therapy. This needs to be medically researched to help more people with early diagnosis and intervention to increase chances of successful recovery.

 

[Dont Taz Me Bro]

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