I AM ENGAGED!!!

I have been single for the last nine years. I have had some relationships but none turned out to be the one whom I know God had for me. As I have prayed over the last nine years, and sought His word, I have come to know and love my future bride without meeting her. I know it seems hard to understand but I knew I loved her before I met her. When Claudia and I met it was like clockwork. I wasn't looking and hoping, I was praying and asking for confirmation from outside sources. As I followed God I was reminded of key prophesies God had given me through Clint Rogers and Denny Cramer. More Confirmation. Claudia Carrada is my Fiance', my Ezer Kenegdo, mi corazon y mi preciosa princesa de Dios!

Don't Waste Your Problems or Struggles

The following was given to us (the congregation) during service on September 9, 2007 but it is still a valid word for today.

Opal Chapman:
This last week God gave me a dream and I knew it was for the church. It's going to seem kind of funny. I want you to follow with me. In this dream we were having company and the house was just a mess. These two guys were staying with us. The kitchen counters were all full of dishes and the tables. It was in such chaos and disarray. These guys were coming in and out, staying the night. Dick came to me, he was sad, and he said, "We need to talk." He said, "I'm really aggravated at you. You knew company was coming and everything is so chaotic." Immediately I wanted to say, "You don't understand," but then I heard the Spirit of the Lord say, "Don't make excuses." So all I said to Dick was, "I'm really sorry, Honey. You're right. I should have had it cleaned up." When we got through talking, I knew he was really frustrated. But I kept saying to myself inside, "You don't know what I'm going through. You don't know what I'm going through. You don't know what I'm struggling through." This is what I kept hearing inside, "You don't even know what I'm struggling with." Then I woke up and I asked the Lord, "Is there anything that I'm doing that I'm not struggling with it in the right way?" The Lord said, "This represents the Body. There are people out there every Sunday and they're not struggling with what they are going through in a healthy way. They are not coming to Me so therefore it is bringing chaos and their life is full of disarray. It is frustrating the people around them. Some of you husbands are frustrating your wives; you're frustrating your kids because you are not walking out what you're going through the right way. It is frustrating the people around you." But God says, "You've got to learn, it is not a question of if we struggle in life, it is a question of when something comes up for us to struggle with." God wants us to know that if we don't struggle with Him, not without Him, we are going to bring chaos around us. Our life is going to be so chaotic, and we are going to make the people that we love the most so aggravated with us. He wants us to know we have got to struggle and go toward Him in the struggle. We've got to be desperate for Him; we've got to be hungry for Him. That when we go through these obstacles, the Word says, "…you're going to have troubles and tribulations, but be of good cheer because I've overcome the world." He says, "I've already fought the battle, I've overcome it." While we are struggling without Him, it produces such a negative force, such a depression. All the time, in the dream, I knew I needed to get up and clean the house, I knew I needed to get up and deal with the chaos. But I kept saying inside, "I can't do it, I can't do it." But when Dick addressed the situation to me and said he was really embarrassed, the first thing I wanted to do was make excuses for myself and then I heard the Spirit of the Lord say, "Don't justify yourself. Accept responsibility." That's what God wants us to do this morning is to accept responsibility then say, "Okay, I'm in this chaos now Lord, get me out because I cannot get myself out of it alone."


Dick Chapman:
You know struggle is a part of life; you can't get away from it. You learn how to struggle, that's the important thing. You may say, "I don't know how to struggle." Let me encourage you in this…go to Jesus in prayer, go to the Word, and go to other people who know how to struggle. People who have a proven track record, who are not bitter, are not resentful, are not hateful, who are not angry; go to others who have learned how to struggle and learn how to struggle. We live in a world consumed with struggle, why wouldn't we be in a struggle as well. How can we help them if we can't even get through our own struggles? God leaves so many struggles in our life so that we can learn how to overcome. Some of you keep saying, "God, just take this out of my life," and He's not taking it away because He's waiting for you to learn how to struggle properly, to go through it, so that you learn to become mature and victorious in life. He's not going to rapture you out of it. He's not going to come and just take this away so that you don't have to mess with it. You better mess with it because it's messing with you. But do it God's way, with Him. I am so glad God doesn't give me my way, He insists upon me following His way. He is the way. If you're in the midst of struggle, you're in the midst of a miracle. If you're in the midst of struggle, you're in the midst of salvation.

If you're in the midst of struggle, you're in the midst of maturity. Greater maturity than you've ever known. And we need mature believers on this earth, not gone to heaven.

Republic vs. Democracy

As a nation, Americans have grown accustomed to hearing that we are a democracy. But did you know that such was never the intent of our founding fathers? Our founders had an opportunity to establish a democracy in America and chose not to. In fact, the founders made it clear that we were not, and were never to become, a democracy. The form of government entrusted to us by our founders was a republic, not a democracy.

Many Americans today seem to be unable to define the difference between the two, but there is a difference—a big difference. That difference rests in the source of authority.

A pure democracy operates by the direct majority vote of the people. When an issue is to be decided, the entire population votes on it and the majority wins and rules.

A republic differs in that the general population elects representatives who then pass laws to govern the nation. A democracy is the rule by majority feeling (what the founders described as a "mobocracy"). A republic is rule by law.
If the source of law for democracy is the popular feeling of the people, then what is the source of law for the American republic? According to Founder Noah Webster: "Our citizens should early understand that the genuine source of correct republican principles is the Bible, particularly the New Testament, or the Christian religion."

The transcendent values of biblical natural law were the foundation of the American republic. Consider the stability this provides: In our republic, murder will always be a crime, for it is always a crime according to the Word of God. However, in a democracy, if a majority of the people decides that murder is no longer a crime, murder will no longer be a crime.
America's immutable principles of right and wrong were not based on the rapidly fluctuating feelings and emotions of the people but rather on what Montesquieu identified as the "principles that do not change."

Benjamin Rush similarly observed: "Where there is no law, there is no liberty; and nothing deserves the name of law but that which is certain and universal in its operation upon all the members of the community."

In the American republic, the "principles which did not change" and which were "certain and universal in their operation upon all the members of the community" were the principles of biblical natural law. In fact, so firmly were these principles secured in the American republic that early law books taught that government was free to set its own policy only if God had not ruled in an area. The founders understood that biblical values formed the basis of the republic and that the republic would be destroyed if the people's knowledge of those values should ever be lost.

A republic is the highest form of government devised by man, but it also requires the greatest amount of human care and maintenance. If neglected, it can deteriorate into a variety of lesser forms, including a democracy (a government conducted by popular feeling); anarchy (a system in which each person determines his own rules and standards); oligarchy (a government run by a small council or group of elite individuals); or dictatorship (a government run by a single individual). As John Adams explained: "Democracy will soon degenerate into an anarchy; such an anarchy that every man will do what is right in his own eyes and no man's life or property or reputation or liberty will be secure, and every one of these will soon mould itself into a system of subordination of all the moral virtues and intellectual abilities, all the powers of wealth, beauty, wit, and science, to the wanton pleasures, the capricious will, and the execrable [abominable] cruelty of one or a very few."

Understanding the foundation of the American republic is a vital key toward protecting it.

By David Barton, nationally known author and public speaker, founder and president of WallBuilders, a pro-family organization which seeks to educate grass-roots society to rebuild America's constitutional, moral and religious foundations.

Jesus is THE Super Man

I am Superman’s pal (sorry, Jimmy Olsen). I know because he’s a friend.

But we didn’t always know each other. By the time I came along, the Superman radio show was a thing of the past, as was “The Adventures of Superman” television show with George Reeves. Even the comic books were on the decline, with the heyday of the Silver Age—most of the ‘60s—behind them. It would take a miracle to bring Supes back to his former glory.

That miracle was the movie. I was eleven years old when we met. It was Christmastime 1978. For my generation worldwide, “Superman: The Movie” was like a religious experience. Even before we knew Superman was an actor named Christopher Reeve or there was a director behind the scenes named Richard Donner—before we could learn all that, more immediately, more simply, more profoundly, we believed a man could fly.

It was epic, mythic, even evangelistic. A heavenly father sends his only son to save the Earth. The movie impacted us in ways we couldn’t describe. It communicated a message that we longed to hear and were desperate to have confirmed, but didn’t yet comprehend why. We were children. Which is why the movie came to mean even more to us as we grew older. For me, it has meant the most in the last few years.

For the time being, we knew it brought people together, especially sons to fathers. Both of them saw in Superman their hero, their role model, what it could mean to be a man—to fight the good fight, to love others openly, to protect and provide. My dad, a super man, sat next to me in the dark and got lost in the vision as well. Both of us fully responding to everything. Neither of us fully understanding why.

After the movie, everyone applauded and we all stood up to go. Because the matinee was so packed, we still stood in our aisle. If not for that, we might have missed it.

Nowadays, not many recall that the “previews” were called “trailers” because they trailed the movie. This trailer was actually part of the original screenplay. The screen lit up again. Before my already overloaded eyes, new images of Superman appeared, images we had not seen in the movie. There were scenes of Clark and Lois in an embrace; the evil trio Zod, Non, and Ursa wreaking havoc; and most shockingly, Clark, having just been punched, with a bloody face! The adventure was continuing. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t wait!


For years I had heard rumors of superficial parallels between Superman and the Super Man, Jesus Christ. Although I'm inclined to find spiritual truth in worldly stories, for a long time I considered this an intriguing idea but one which was merely the opinion of those who chose to read that meaning into the story.

Then, a few years ago, I read a review of "Superman: The Movie" online at hollywoodjesus.com. The article, written by David Bruce, the creator of the Web site, began with the idea that people respond to Superman because he is a Christ figure--but then went on to outline incredible examples of how the gospel story was used as a template for the Superman story. By the time I had finished reading the review; this intriguing idea had graduated to an interesting argument.

Bruce's review spurred me to research that brought startling revelations. For instance, did you know that:
* Superman and his father share the last name of El--the Hebrew word for God. Thus in the Superman story, when "El" the father sends "El" the son down to Earth, "God" the father sends "God" the son down to Earth.
* Superman's earthly parents, Martha and Jonathan, were modeled after the biblical parents Mary and Joseph--and as I later discovered, Mary and Joseph were the original names of the earthly parents in the comics.
* Superman's enemy is a villain called Lex Luthor, a name suspiciously like Lucifer. And both figures are fueled by the same all-consuming, all-corrupting hunger for power and glory, covered in the deception of friendship and lies.

I found these to be just the tip of a Kryptonian iceberg. But, Superman is NOT Jesus Christ; he is a Christ figure, a figure resembling Christ--as we all should be. That said, the story of Superman bears some incredible parallels to the story of the Super Man, Jesus Christ. Similarly, our own story should also grow to resemble that of Christ as we live to follow Him.---adopted and excerpt from "The Gospel According to the World's Greatest Superhero" by Stephen Skelton.