Following are snippets of the top stories posted over the past week on charismamag.com. We encourage you to visit the links to read the stories in full.
‘Christ Jesus’ Goes Viral on Social Media From Thousands Sharing Scripture
People around the world are suffering from a spiritual drought as God is removed from public places and replaced with secularism and pagan gods of old, as unpacked in Jonathan Cahn’s recent bestseller, “The Return of the Gods.”
Yet this decline in spiritual health and safety can be combated and defeated when Christians rise up and proclaim the name of Jesus to the whole world.
That is precisely what is unfolding on Twitter:
What Does the Bible Say About Cremation? Part 2
California’s Governor Gavin Newsom recently signed green legislation that will allow the “Natural Organic Reduction” of human remains to be used as garden soil! And more states have now approved human “composting” and alkaline hydrolysis (also known as water cremation), which causes ”the deceased human bodies to be ‘completely disintegrated’ and disposed of in fields or sewers. Many will rightfully see these humanistic methods as incompatible with the ethical teaching of man’s inherent dignity and worth.
‘In Lieu of Flowers’
At the same time, we must face the realities and circumstances of modern urban living, with its “concrete jungles,” McMansions and homeless encampments. Inflation itself has driven up the costs of the goods and services required for traditional Christian burials. Caskets, concrete vaults, markers or headstones, embalming, mortuary fees, hearses, flowers and more all inflate and complicate the costs of dying.
All of this has caused many to consider cremation as the preferred choice in disposing of the body of the loved one, while a meaningful memorial event honors the life of the individual. A higher goal of Christian stewardship may prevail for others over our culture’s elaborate and expensive farewells. “In lieu of flowers” or costly funerals, the money might be better used for eternal values and present ministries.
Pentecost Is Always a Surprise
Before Jesus ascended into heaven, He told His disciples He would send the power of the Holy Spirit upon them. But they had no idea what that would look like. Jesus didn’t give them a script to prepare them for Pentecost. There was no church bulletin to explain that a rushing wind would blow at 9 a.m., or that flames would rest on their heads at 9:05 a.m., or that they would speak in strange languages at 9:10 a.m.
Pentecost was a total surprise. It was that way in the first century, and it is that way every time God sends revival. Like the wind the disciples heard in the upper room, Pentecost is always an unscheduled interruption.
- The moral and spiritual condition of people in the American colonies was deplorable in the 1720s. Churches were dead because most ministers weren’t converted. Then some young people in New Jersey began to experience conversion, and this triggered the First Great Awakening. Hundreds of new churches were formed over the next two decades as masses responded to calls to repentance issued by preachers such as Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield.
Mike Signorelli: Watch Out for False Prophets Who Lack These Godly Traits
Recently, Mike Signorelli, lead pastor of V1 Church in New York City, downloaded a pair of significant prophetic words from the Lord for the body of Christ as we go further into the end times and head toward the Second Coming of Jesus.
The first spoke of the separation of vultures and eagles among the leadership in the body, and he explained that the “vultures” are feasting on “dead things,” which he believes is symbolic of dead church systems, dead ideologies, dead mindsets and dead wineskins.
The second vision God gave Signorelli, a part of the deliverance group known as The Demon Slayers, was hauntingly related to the first and warns again about false prophets and those who use the ministry for their own personal gain instead of the desire to bring lost souls into the kingdom.
Perry Stone: How Can You Sense Angels in the Atmosphere?
Many people, even Christians, question the existence of angels and demons in our world, simply because they have never seen one or felt one. And if they do believe in them, many of them wonder how to sense one that is in the atmosphere.
But, Voice of Evangelism founder Perry Stone assures us, both entities are very real even if believers cannot seem them with their physical eyes.
“There is an invisible world, and that world is called the spirit world,” Stone said in a recently released video. “People have often asked me, ‘Why can we not see with our natural eyes into the spirit world?’ As with many instances in the Bible, including with Daniel and the apostle John, when you see in the supernatural realm, it’s a very fearful thing. There is a fear that comes when you see into the invisible world. …. God protects us many times by not allowing us to look into the spirit world.
To purchase Charisma founder and bestselling author Stephen E. Strang’s latest book, “Spirit-Led Living in an Upside-Down World,” go to SteveStrangBooks.com.
