Category Archives: Personal Development

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Could celebrating Halloween be spiritually dangerous?

By Dennis Petersen
“Test all things; hold fast to what is good. Abstain from every form of evil.” 1 Thessalonians 5:21-22

Have you noticed how, even before October begins, when the pumpkin decorations start rolling out in the stores, that the dark side of the celebration becomes more obviously evil every year?

Did you know that the word Halloween can be translated as holy night? But holy for whom? What happens when a night meant to be sacred is hijacked by rituals of death and darkness?

The word Halloween comes from something that sounds sacred. It means ‘All Hallow’s Eve,’ meaning the evening before All Saints Day. In the medieval Christian calendar, November 1st was chosen to honor believers who had died as martyrs. The night before became known as the eve of this holy day. When church leaders chose November 1st for All Saints Day, that date was already marked by ancient peoples across Northern Europe. It was a time for rituals far older than any Christian observance. The church tried to overlay a holy remembrance on top of existing pagan celebrations.


All Saints’ Day, also known as All Hallows’ Day, originated in the early Christian Church as a memorial day for martyrs who were executed for their faith in Jesus by pagan governments, like the Roman Empire. The first known collective celebration occurred in the 4th century. Early believers had reverence for martyrs like the Apostle John’s disciple, Polycarp.  His celebrated model of faithfulness was documented in a written report called the “Martyrdom of Polycarp,” written shortly after his execution in AD 155.  The observance of All Saints Day was moved to November 1st by Pope Gregory III in the mid-8th century when it became a universal holy day (from which we get the word ‘holiday’ which is a festival or feast day).

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Josiah – Boy King – a model of bold humility

By Dennis Petersen

Did you ever discover something you didn’t know that made a big change in your life?

Have you ever heard of a boy named Josiah?

He lived over 2600 years ago.  He was only 8 years old when his extremely evil father (King Amon of Judah) was assassinated in his own house by his royal servants after only 2 years of being king of Judah.  Amon had followed in the grossly sinful footsteps of Josiah’s grandfather, King Manasseh. During his 55-year reign, Manasseh seduced a whole generation of God’s people to do more evil than the idol-worshipping Canaanites that the LORD destroyed by Israel’s armies in prior generations. Despite the 29-year flourishing of their people under Manasseh’s father, King Hezekiah, the people of Judah under Manasseh, followed his evil abominations to do more wickedly than God’s wicked enemies, the Amorites. They followed after immorality and idolatry that secularized the people of Israel under false gods. (2 Kings 21:2, 9, 11).

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The Creator of Mankind is regaining Center Stage of Human attention

By Dennis Petersen

The historic, providentially prepared founders of America, against all politically correct conventional wisdom of that day, defiantly and bravely declared that there are certain truths that are self-evident.

Have you noticed the very first truth they listed in the Declaration of Independence?  There’s not a hint that there was any dispute at all about the Biblical truth of the eternal existence of the Creator God.  In the 18th century, the reality of Jehovah God was undeniably embossed on the minds of virtually all thinking people.  In fact, even carelessly immoral and dishonest people, back then, would generally have agreed with the biblical truth that, yes, all humans must ultimately give an account to their Creator for the actions of their lifetime.

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Spiritual Warfare in a Corrupt Society

God’s People are Rediscovering their Divine Legacy in such a time as this by Dennis Petersen

You’re not alone if you feel horrified by the perverse and corrupt wickedness being exposed openly in our society’s mountains of influence.

Truly, the manufactured political crisis of a highly questionable health emergency is tragic.  But God has been using it to expose unimaginable corruption and ignorance.  Now, He’s using all of it to generate awakening and repentance.  

In the post-Civil War generations, Christian pastors en masse, began failing their Biblical assignment. What’s that? Ephesians 4:12-14 tells us.  It’s for…

“…the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ…”  And that is expected to result that we would all grow up to maturity… no longer children… being tossed around by the trickery of deceitful men.

Doesn’t it make sense that should mean that the saints should all be actively prepared to disciple their own young people to be the influencers for righteousness in THIS nation?

But think of what happened.  The generation that survived the Civil War created the industrial revolution, ushering humanity into the Space Age.  It took only a century of growing, but eventually unimagined national prosperity reduced a spoiled and entitled generation to face the possible disaster of becoming another third world socialist country.

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Living in Victory when it Looks like Defeat Surrounds You

by Dennis Petersen

Can you think of times in history when victory seemed remote and defeat was all around? What is God saying to His Ekklesia – his true family of believing members of the body of Christ – in the midst of the pervasive darkness and fear that is so obvious in today’s world? One would have to be completely unaware of history and current events to not see that the challenges facing the human race today are historic.  And, if you’re a child of God, following the Lord Jesus Christ as His disciple, you’d have to be spiritually asleep to not perceive that God is preparing His true church for unusually special times of living in the conscious awareness of His sovereign guidance, God-glorifying purpose and victorious destiny.

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Our Ambassador Assignment to Stand Strong in the Culture War

The Pagan Left has dominated the Culture War in America far too long

“Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ” Col 2:8

Did you know that Noah Webster, America’s Schoolmaster, said during our founding era, “…that the man who weakens or destroys the divine authority of the Bible may be accessory to all public disorders that society is doomed to suffer.”

The term “Culture War” has become common in describing contemporary American life and politics.

Is it possible for a Biblically faithful culture to survive in this cultural war that has essentially determined the ways of thinking, living, and behaving in a post Christian society?

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Time to Prepare for coming Storms

This is Time to Prepare for coming Storms – every leader Needs to be a vocal watchman (vigilant sentry).

Like Esther, you fathers, elders, deacons, ministers, and bishops… must respond to the compelling message of Mordecai in the Bible book of Esther. And almost nobody has yet told us what that ‘compelling message’ is.

Various kinds of unbelievably insane eras like ours today, have happened many times before on this earth.  We’re not the first.  But in previous generations of mankind, the craziness was typically more localized in a certain region or empire – like crazy Caesar Nero’s Rome near the end of Christ’s Ekklesia’s first generation, or Bloody Mary’s medieval England at the dawn of the Reformation, or the murderous regime of Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.  Today, it seems to be the whole planet Earth is under an evil spell of wicked forces in high places. It’s been that way all along of course, only now, lots more people are realizing that the evil is a direct war against the Creator and His set-apart people, Christ’s Ekklesia, the kingdom of God’s blood-redeemed family.

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Will we Proclaim the truth even when lies are more popular?

 

Do you sometimes feel like you’re swimming upstream when you’re trying to go the right way … and so many are going the wrong way?

“Speak the truth to each other, and render true and sound judgment in your courts” Zech. 8:16

“Should I keep back my opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offense, I should consider myself as guilty of treason toward my country, and of an act of disloyalty toward the Majesty of Heaven, which I revere above all earthly kings.”  

Patrick Henry

If liberty has any genuine meaning in our age of deception, it certainly carries the right to tell people the truth – even when they’ve been conditioned by their trusted teachers to think they don’t want to hear it.

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Education without virtue ruins its home culture with seeds of inevitable destruction

a painting of children sitting at desks in a classroom with books on the table

America is now facing a crisis of educational insanity that is literally threatening the survival of the nation itself. Before the ‘mountain’ of education was overtaken by bureaucrats of the federal government, Americans grew up with a high-quality education. It was either delivered at home or at locally run community or private schools supported by parents, philanthropists, and churches.

I’ve drawn much of today’s Reclaiming Your Legacy episode from my friend, Alex Newman, editor-in-chief for the New American Magazine. He’s a leading advocate for private and home-based education, and he has written many publications, including one that deserves your consideration to get bulk copies to send to friends. It’s called Rescuing Our Children. You can download a free pdf copy, at this link… perfect for sharing with others about this vital issue:

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A Free society Requires a Righteous People who appoint Righteous Accountable Leaders

Would you agree that the People of American society are able to be the effective core of our civil government, only when we participate in the process of informing, educating, and training our families and fellow citizens to live as the true “We the People?”  But for us as Christians, that raises an even more basic premise. How can we be ‘salt and light’ to civil society, if we are not actively asserting our role in filling our assignments in the body of our Messiah’s Ekklesia?  And by using that word – “Ekklesia” – I’m not talking here about just attending ‘church’ on Sunday.  Yes, it’s true that the Greek word “Ekklesia” is translated in English Bibles as the word church. But we all know that most people think of “church” as the building we go to… or the name of the event we attend on Sundays.  Oh yes, they might think of “church” as the institution of our denomination with all its hierarchy and programs.  But these are not what Jesus said He would “build” when He commended His disciple Peter for the declaration that Jesus is “the Messiah (or Christ), the Son of the living God” (Matt 16:16). 

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