Category Archives: Personal Development

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Thanksgiving in America – a legacy worth reclaiming #316

 Dr Marshall Foster, the brilliant Christian historian, American patriot, and founder of the World History Institute, was a master teacher of the story of America’s brave pioneers. His remarkable documentary called “Monumental,” produced in collaboration with patriot actor Kirk Cameron, is a profound telling of one of the best kept secrets among the historic places in the story of the birth of the American nation.

Two years before he died, Dr Foster wrote a brief summary of some of the providential events in the story that 21st century families seldom know about the people that inspired the tradition of American Thanksgiving. It was published in the March/April 2019 issue of the World History Institute as “The Pilgrims: The Untold Story.” See it at: https://s3.amazonaws.com/media.cloversites.com/7b/7b1202d0-06c2-40f6-b287-4071ddc76a28/documents/Mar-Apr_2019_v1r2-singles.pdf

All of Dr Foster’s journal issues are archived at World History Institute | Journals or https://worldhistoryinstitute.com/free-downloads/journals

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Our Personal Quest to Reclaim a Legacy of Thanksgiving #367

by Dennis Petersen

 A lot has been researched and written about the proven personal benefits of living with a habit of expressing genuine gratitude.  It turns out that thankfulness is not typically a result of being happy, but rather, the opposite is true.  People who deliberately and openly confess their thankfulness to others are the happiest of people.  And isn’t it interesting that those who recognize that their lives have a purpose are the ones who are prone to give thanks to their Creator and to those around them.

Have you discovered your purpose?  Do you have a clear reason why you’re excited to get up in the morning?  If you have a mission to drive your daily goals, you’re a much happier person than those being driven by just a survival mode.

America is a nation of people with a centuries-old tradition of celebrating annual solemn days of Thanksgiving.  Yet, it seems that our current generation has almost no concept of the deeply personal conviction of the crucial importance of gratitude.  And it’s pretty obvious that that gratitude should most deservedly be directed to the Almighty Giver of every blessing and perfect gift in our lives.

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The Most High God raises up kings and takes down kings

The entire world of humanity witnessed one of the most pivotal events in history on January 20th 2025.  That reality of what began to happen then was well-expressed in the opening remarks of Donald Trump’s first address to our nation, eight minutes after taking his oath of office as the 47th President of the United States of America.

TRUMP: “The golden age of America begins right now!” (applause) From this day forward, our country will flourish and be respected again all over the world. We will be the envy of every nation and we will not allow ourselves to be taken advantage of any longer. During every single day of the Trump administration, I will very simply put America first.

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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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