Does your faith need strengthening? Are you confused and wondering if Jesus Christ is really "The Way, the Truth, and the Life?" "Fight for Your Faith" is a blog filled with interesting and thought provoking articles to help you find the answers you are seeking. Jesus said, "Seek and ye shall find." In Jeremiah we read, "Ye shall seek Me, and find Me, when ye shall seek for Me with all your heart." These articles and videos will help you in your search for the Truth.

Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Cura Maravilhosa

Palavras de Jesus

Só ele cura os de coração quebrantado e cuida das suas feridas.
Ele determina o número de estrelas e chama cada uma pelo nome.
Grande é o nosso Soberano e tremendo é o seu poder;
É impossível medir o seu entendimento.
O Senhor sustém o oprimido.
O Senhor se agrada dos que o temem, dos que colocam a esperança no seu amor leal.
—Salmo 147:3–6, 11[1]

*

Pare de se debater e descanse no Meu amor. Pode ter certeza que quando vier a Mim Me encontrará. Não tema, e não deixe o sentimento de culpa detê-lo ou fazê-lo achar que não o amo. Conheço as fraquezas e as debilidades da carne, mas estou fazendo o Meu caminho o mais fácil e suave possível apesar de tudo isso.

Como um pai se compadece do seu filho que se esforça por Lhe agradar, Eu Me compadeço de você e abro a porta, por livre e espontânea vontade, ao vê-lo se esforçando por alcançar a maçaneta. Eu lhe dou entrada livre no Meu Reino. Venha e participe dos frutos do Meu Espírito. Participe de graça, pois de graça os dou e pode desfrutar deles para sempre.


No deserto

Não se canse, tenha fé e confie no Meu amor. Confie que Eu permito as provas e batalhas, e as ocasiões em que se sente no deserto, tendo que se deitar à sombra das árvores e beber a água fresca do manancial para encontrar forças. No momento, não considera isso uma bênção, mas esses tempos de quietude e oração, esses tempos de solidão e reflexão, o tornarão uma pessoa mais profunda no espírito.

Você encontrará sabedoria, compaixão e compreensão. Encontrará forças em Mim. Encontrará o poder que precisa através do seu relacionamento Comigo. Você pensa: "Tantas vezes eu já estive nesse deserto. Tantas vezes partilhei dessa quietude e solidão. Por que preciso passar por isso mais uma vez? Será que é porque não estou aprendendo as lições? Será que o meu coração é tão empedernido que não estou ouvindo a voz de Deus então Ele tem que Me castigar e quebrantar repetidas vezes?"

Não é um castigo ou penalidade. Não é porque você não está ouvindo a Minha voz ou aprendendo suas lições. É porque Eu o estou abençoando, honrando e dando-lhe o privilégio de passar esse tempo especial em comunhão Comigo para nos conhecermos mais intimamente.

Não quero que tenha outros deuses diante de Mim, nem a sua família ou o seu cônjuge ou trabalho. Você vai precisar ter essa relação íntima Comigo para cumprir o plano que tenho para você no futuro, quando terá que estar em sintonia Comigo e em oração, quando precisará de sabedoria e terá que ser gentil, amoroso e compreensivo com aqueles se sentem desencorajados e desesperançados.

Pelo fato de ter passado esse tempo no deserto, você poderá falar da abundância do seu coração. Poderá falar por experiência e dar testemunho das bênçãos e benefícios de confiar em Mim e ouvir a Minha voz.


Cirurgia no coração

Venha a mim do jeitinho que você é. Eu lhe darei um novo coração e espírito. Estou ciente das muitas pedrinhas que maculam a beleza do seu coração. Confie que Eu farei o que você não consegue, que é remover cada uma delas. Não espere que seja indolor, porque cirurgia cardíaca é um procedimento sério e doloroso. Muitas dificuldades que teve, apesar de não saber, se deviam às habilidosas cirurgias que eu fiz no seu coração. Recorra a Mim nos momentos difíceis, dê um sorrisinho matreiro e Me agradeça por estar renovando o seu íntimo e mudando o seu coração. Esse ato de fé não acaba instantaneamente com o sofrimento, mas faz a dor ter sentido.

Maravilhe-se com o fato de ser uma nova criação enxertada em Mim, o Messias. Você está livre para sempre da lei da condenação do pecado e da morte. Regozije-se com esta gloriosa verdade mesmo em intenso sofrimento. Eu sou o Criador de todas as coisas, e você, criado à Minha semelhança, foi imbuído de poder criativo. Esforce-se por olhar para as suas circunstâncias com uma perspectiva nova, disposto a colaborar Comigo durante esse processo de criação de uma nova pessoa, em você e por meio de você. Eu, mesmo sendo o Senhor do universo, desejo trabalhar em parceria com você. Aquiescendo a esta aventura sagrada, você cumprirá o propósito para o qual o criei.[2]


Leve a embarcação até o porto

Sinto a dor e o trauma que você sentiu, tanto no corpo como no espírito, quando passou por essa difícil experiência. Conheço a sua dor, pesar e o sentimento de perda, como se faltasse algo. Você precisa se agarrar a Mim para superar essa depressão e alterações de humor, e conseguir sair dessa montanha-russa emocional. Precisa orar por mais fé, e acreditar na Minha promessa de que o conservarei em perfeita paz. Mantenha a mente firme em Mim, acredite e aceite o Meu amor e o amor das pessoas ao seu redor.

Este quebrantamento, este esmagamento, essas fortes emoções, essa experiência tumultuada, é como a lapidação de uma gema rara e preciosíssima. Permito que algumas partes sejam retiradas e aparentemente perdidas, mas dessa forma posso revelar a verdadeira beleza interior — a brilhante, cintilante e fulgurante beleza. Esse processo torna a pessoa mais profunda, e isso é uma joia de grande valor. Agora o amor dentro do seu coração pode fluir melhor, sem obstáculos.

O segredo da força e da vitória está no seu amor e confiança em Mim, e na fé que tem em Mim e nos outros. É importante considerar tudo o que você tem, e não aquilo que não tem. É essencial acreditar e aceitar o amor que recebe de Mim e daqueles que a amam. Conforme recebe e acredita, confia, descansa e reage em amor, você encontrará paz e cura para a sua mente e espírito. O seu barco, que no momento está sendo açoitado pelas ondas em alto mar, poderá entrar no calmo porto da paz, do descanso e da alegria que ofereço.


Estou junto de você

Nada está oculto aos Meus olhos. Eu conheço cada um dos seus pensamentos, desejos, e cada oração secreta. Sempre que você olha para Mim e clama a Mim, estou próximo. Ouço suas orações, e o Meu coração se enche de compaixão. Eu nunca endureço o Meu coração. Nunca Me canso de ouvir você. Nunca viro as costas ou durmo. Nunca coloco na porta uma plaquinha que diz "Não incomode". Nunca estou distante, cansado, ou ocupado demais para você. Sempre escuto e atendo às suas orações — às vezes do jeito que você quer, e outras vezes de maneiras que não sabe ou que ainda não consegue ver. Mas Eu ouço e respondo!

*

Portanto, visto que temos um grande sumo sacerdote que adentrou os céus, Jesus, o Filho de Deus, apeguemo-nos com toda a firmeza à fé que professamos, pois não temos um sumo sacerdote que não possa compadecer-se das nossas fraquezas, mas sim alguém que, como nós, passou por todo tipo de tentação, porém, sem pecado. Assim sendo, aproximemo-nos do trono da graça com toda a confiança, a fim de recebermos misericórdia e encontrarmos graça que nos ajude no momento da necessidade.—Hebreus 4:14–16[3]

Publicado originalmente em 1997, salvo indicação contrária. Adaptado e republicado em agosto de 2014. Tradução Hebe Rondon Flandoli.


[1] NVI.

[2] Sarah Young, Jesus Lives (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2009).

[3] NVI.

Smile! - devotional

A compilation
http://anchor.tfionline.com/post/smile/

Audio length: 9:11
Download Audio (7.3MB)

Did you know that one chapter in Proverbs contains two of the greatest verses on the power of smiling?

“A happy heart makes the face cheerful, but heartache crushes the spirit.” “A cheerful look brings joy to the heart, and good news gives health to the bones.”—Proverbs 15:13, 301

God showed me something this morning that I thought was really neat. In the first verse, He says that happiness comes from the heart. In other words, if you choose to be happy on the inside, it will show on the outside.

In the other verse, it says the converse idea: that when you choose to have a cheerful look, then your heart will be joyful. In other words, put a smile on your face and you will also feel good on the inside.

So, put a smile on your face—not only will it encourage others to do the same, but you will feel good and probably have a better attitude for doing it.

There may be times that you think, “I don’t have anything to smile about.” When you feel this way, ask God what you have to smile about. He will be faithful to show you!—Don and Lori Gordoni2

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The world is like a mirror: Frown at it, and it frowns at you; smile at it and it smiles too.—Herbert Samuels

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The thing that goes the farthest
Towards making life worthwhile,
That costs the least, and does the most,
Is just a pleasant smile.
It’s full of worth and goodness too,
With manly kindness blent,
It’s worth a million dollars,
And it doesn’t cost a cent!
—Wilbur D. Nesbit

*

My love has many expressions. My love includes a tender touch, a loving look, a bright smile, a kind deed, a silent prayer. My love can take a critical thought and transform it into a fervent prayer. My love wars for those who struggle in spirit, fights for them at heaven’s throne of grace.—Jesus, speaking in prophecy

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Most smiles are started by another smile.—Frank A. Clark

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A smile is the lighting system of the face and the heating system of the heart.—Barbara Johnson

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The eyes are the windows of the soul, but there’s something about a smile that lets the spirit out somehow. The Lord did not make a lot of us to look very good with our face in repose. When people smile, even people who are not particularly good looking look a lot better. But when you have the Lord’s Spirit and you smile—there’s something amazing about it—you just glow. It releases the light. It’s a beautiful witness and testimony.

Even if people do not know who you are, when you smile they know you have something beautiful, something special. That is a testimony, because it makes them want that too, or it encourages them, or it gives them a chance to connect with the Lord and His love, even if they do not know what they are connecting with. So smile—and not just a little half-smile, but really let it shine!—Maria Fontaine

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Nobody needs a smile so much as those who have none to give.—Author unknown

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Wear a happy face! It’s your display counter—your show window, your best advertisement!—David Brandt Berg

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As the words of the song “Smile” say, “Smile, though your heart is aching. Smile, even though it’s breaking.” If you will just smile and let Me shine through you, then you will have joy, even if there is pain and sorrow for a time. Give Me all of your tears, your heartbreak, your sorrow. Place them in My hands, and then smile. The sun will come shining through for you, so smile. That’s not a maybe, that’s for certain. I’ll put that happiness back in your heart as you just smile.—Jesus, speaking in prophecy

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When you smile at someone, nine times out of ten the other person will smile back, and you’ve made two people’s days brighter and better.—Author unknown

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There are hundreds of languages in the world, but a smile speaks them all.—Author unknown

*

Smile, smile, smile. Whenever someone sees a smiling face, it reminds them that they may have reasons to smile themselves, and it will create a happier mood. That simplest of human interactions, just a slight perking of the lips, is one of the strongest messages of goodwill at your command. Whether you walk with a smile on your face all day or just smile at a certain person who catches your eye, a frank, open smile will not only cheer up the recipient (and maybe get you a smile back), but you will notice that smiling actually makes you feel happier.—Author unknown3

*

Lift up your head and smile through your tears,
God’s never failed you down through the years.
He has watched over you, cared for your own,
He’ll not fail now, He’s still on the throne.
Dark though the shadows just now may be,
Still through the mist a pathway you’ll see.
Faith to the promise unfailing cling,
God’s on the throne and prayer changes things.
—Virginia Brandt Berg

*

What helps you feel My love? Think about the things that happen in your life that reassure you that I love you and that others love you. There are many good answers there, and many ways that you can do the same for the one beside you.

Give a warm greeting instead of an indifferent glance. A smile and cheerful words reassure you that everything is okay. Take a moment to answer a question with consideration and sincerity, instead of in pressured haste, which can make others feel belittled or in the way. Take time to help the one next to you, and in so doing, help them to feel My appreciation and to know that I need them, that I appreciate them and their devotion to Me.—Jesus, speaking in prophecy

*

Smile at each other, smile at your wife, smile at your husband, smile at your children, smile at each other—it does not matter who it is—and that will help you to grow up in greater love for each other.—Mother Teresa

*

Whatever we become here in mortality is meaningless unless it is done for the benefit of others. Our gifts and talents are given to us to help us serve. And in serving others we grow spiritually.

We are here to help each other, to care for each other, to understand, forgive, and serve one another. We are here to have love for every person born on earth.

Anything we do to show love is worthwhile; a smile, a word of encouragement, a small act of sacrifice. We grow by these actions.—Betty J. Eadie4

Or watch Charlie Chaplin's famous song "Smile!"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHPDrInbybw

Published on Anchor September 2014. Read by Gabriel Garcia Valdivieso.

Footnotes
1 NIV.
2 Adapted from http://neveradullminute.blogspot.com
3 http://www.wikihow.com/Brighten-Someone’s-Day
4 Embraced by the Light (Placerville, CA: Gold Leaf Press, 1992).

Start Working Out After 65

Sara Bliss, Yahoo News, Sep 3, 2014

When Patricia Wrixon realized that she could barely carry her groceries up to her second-floor walkup in Boston’s North End, the 72-year-old knew something had to give. For a minute, she considered moving to an apartment with an elevator. Then she tried something a little less radical—exercise.

Wrixon has a busy career as owner of The Salon at 10 Newbury, but working out wasn’t a priority. She thought she’d start slow with yoga, but the class was on the fourth floor, and it took 60 steps to get there—a workout in itself. So she joined Exhale, a local gym that offers yoga, stretching, and Core Fusion classes, a mix of barre, light weights, and mat work. She started by taking one-on-one yoga and stretching classes to ease herself into a routine. “I was afraid if I dove into a regular class, I might get hurt,” Wrixon says.

According to Los Angeles trainer Kendell Hogan, regional director for Crunch, starting out slow is the smart way to go when you’re taking up exercise after your 65th birthday. Hogan advises against high intensity, cardiovascular workouts or heavy weight-bearing exercise, which can elevate your heart rate too much or increase your risk of injury. According to the trainer, the most important thing is to just get people moving. “As you age you start to lose your muscle mass, so it’s important to stay active to stay strong,” Hogan tells Yahoo Beauty. “It’s not just about working out, it’s about being able to bend down and pick up groceries or pick up your grandchildren.”

After just six months of exercising three days a week, Wrixon is noticing some big results. “My balance is better; I can get dressed without leaning on something,” she says. “I have also noticed an increase in my stamina, which helps when you work 60 hours a week like I do, and I feel more active when taking care of my grandchildren.” And carrying groceries up the stairs? “No problem,” laughs Wrixon.

Are Bees Really All That Busy?


Mental Floss, September 8, 2014

If idioms are to be believed, bees are some of the most industrious animals around. But it’s a little more complicated than poet Isaac Watts made it out be be when he wrote “How doth the little busy bee / Improve each shining hour, / And gather honey all the day / From every opening flower!”
Some bees don’t really do any work at all, and are parasites of other bee species. These so-called “cuckoo bees” don’t collect pollen or build their own homes. Instead, they steal food from, and lay their eggs in, other bees’ nests. When the cuckoo bee larvae hatch, they eat their hosts’ pollen stores and sometimes their eggs if mom did not feast on them already.
Other bee groups—the stingless bees, bumble bees and honey bees—are social insects that live together and work cooperatively. They put in honest work, unlike the cuckoo bees, but the amount of labor any one bee does varies with its role in the colony. The honey bee workers that forage food for the hive often do work “all the day,” like in the poem. Slate’s Forrest Wickman reports that these workers “spend nearly every hour of daylight outside” and entomologists have seen them making more than 100 foraging trips in a day. But these guys strictly work the day-shift, and come home to relax when the sun goes down. Meanwhile, other workers whose jobs keep them home tending honeycombs and cooling the nest work around the clock, but also take frequent breaks. “Drones, by contrast, are quite lazy,” Wickman says. “They don’t leave the hive until early afternoon, at which time they carouse around in packs, and when they get home just a few hours later, they rely on the worker bees to feed them.”
Even among the foraging workers, the workload is not shared evenly and some bees are busier than others. New research suggests that it’s a small group of workers that do the bulk of the labor, while the others take it easy until conditions in the colony change and prompt them to get to work.
For the study, researchers from the University of Illinois set up five experimental honeybee (Apis mellifera ) colonies—three in natural outdoor areas and two inside screened enclosures. Each hive was equipped with pairs of laser scanners at its entrance, and 100 to 300 workers from each colony were tagged with tiny micro-transponders. As these workers passed through the hive entrances, the scanners recorded the unique IDs of their tags, the direction they were traveling (that is, entering or exiting the hive) and the time of day. The setup allowed the researchers to track the workers as they came and went and tell how much time they spent out and about or in the hive, kind of like the time clocks that some businesses use to track employee hours. The scientists also used handheld scanners to record tagged bees’ visits to pollen and nectar feeders that they’d set up near the enclosed hives.
After almost two months of gathering data while the bees went about their business, the researchers got a picture of the workers’ activity levels, and it showed that a small portion of bees were much busier than the rest. In all five hives, around 20 percent of the tagged workers accounted for half of the total recorded flight activity. These “elite” foragers, the researchers say, “began to make trips as soon as the colony became active each morning, and made regular, closely spaced trips throughout the day until the cessation of colony-wide flight activity in the evening.”
The elite workers were not always busy, though, and their activity levels spiked and dipped over the course of the experiment and their lifetimes. That made the researchers think that the elite bees’ hard-working ways were not intrinsic, which team leader Gene Robinson says has always been the assumption with social insects, but adaptive. A worker might be more or less active in response to certain circumstances, like a favorite food source running low or new sources appearing. If the super foragers weren’t special, then maybe the other bees were not simply slackers, but more of a reserve work force also capable of elite behavior and just waiting for their time to shine.
To see if the low-activity bees could and would step up their game when duty called, the researchers waited at the feeders near the enclosed hives during peak foraging time and captured all the bees that arrived there. While they could not specifically target known high-activity bees, the busier workers did have a higher chance of getting bee-napped because they made more trips. Sure enough, when the scientists checked the IDs of the captured bees and looked at their previous day’s flight records, most of the bees they removed were in the top 20 percent of the workforce.
For the rest of the day after the cull, the feeders at both hives were quiet, with fewer than ten visits between them. The next day, though, foraging activity and the number of bees at the feeders returned to normal. The bees that had been taking it easy before were picking up the slack of their missing co-workers, some of them boosting their activity levels by almost 500 percent. The results, the researchers say, suggest that a hive is not divided into hard workers and slackers, but that every worker keeps tabs on the net activity of the colony and adjusts their own activity accordingly to make sure that the colony’s needs are being met.

Iraq – a crisis for the Western elites? Or is it all going to plan?

Neil Clark is a journalist, writer and broadcaster. His award winning blog can be found atwww.neilclark66.blogspot.com. Follow him on Twitter

http://rt.com/op-edge/179988-iraq-crisis-western-elites/
August 13, 2014 10:29
It has all turned out rather differently from how those very distinguished neocon “experts”’ told us it would, hasn’t it?

In the lead-up to the illegal invasion of Iraq in March 2003, we were assured “regime change” would lead to peace and stability and be good news for the whole region. The war on terror would be won, if only that great monster Saddam- with his world-threatening weapons of mass destruction- was removed from power. When asked by an interviewer: “If we go into Iraq and we take down Hussein?” the chairman of the Defense Policy Board Richard Perle replied: “Then I think it's over for the terrorists.”

“I have certainly made up my mind, as indeed any sensible person would, that the region in the world, most of all the people of Iraq, would be in a far better position without Saddam Hussein,” said Tony Blair.

Now eleven years on, the US is again intervening in Iraq, but this time to bomb radical Islamists who have taken control of much of the country. And incredibly, and rather obscenely, the neocon politicians, pundits and ‘experts’ who caused the mess in the first place are still lecturing us on what needs to be done.

It was not hard to predict that the violent toppling of Saddam would lead to chaos and that radical Islamists would step into the vacuum.

As I wrote in The Spectator in March 2002, “Like it or not the most likely alternative to the secular regimes of Assad in Syria and Saddam in Iraq would be militant Islamic ones.”

To make matters worse, having toppled Saddam, the invaders destroyed the state infrastructure, purged the civil service of up to 120,000 people and disbanded the Iraqi army. Their actions were a recipe for disaster. “After 2003, not only did the state’s ability to impose order on Iraq disintegrate, but the coherence and capacity of its civil institutions also fell away. The population was bereft of order of state-delivered services,” writes Toby Dodge in his 2012 book Iraq: From War to a New Authoritarianism.

The most charitable explanation is that the neocon strategy was misguided and that these great brains that planned the Iraq war and its aftermath were actually rather stupid. But there is a more sinister and much more plausible explanation. Namely that the West’s imperialist elite set out to deliberately destroy Iraq, and make sure that it would always be a failed state. Iraq is weak and divided precisely because it was meant to be weak and divided. And groups like ISIS/IS have thrived because of the deliberate destruction of a strong state structure.

This is the thesis put forward in the new book by Dan Glazebrook Divide and Ruin: The West‘s Imperial Strategy in an Age of Crisis.

Glazebrook argues that this new strategy of not just pursuing “regime change” but going out to destroy the countries too is a natural result of the US Empire’s declining economic influence. The US can no longer be sure that the new regime it installs in countries where it has toppled the old government, will do its bidding.

So the best strategy is to destroy the country to make sure that it will never again be a strong, independent actor. “It is only in this context that we can understand the apparently ludicrous policies pursued by the West across the Middle East: the promotion of vicious sectarianism, the banning of major political parties, barring officials from work and so on. They are designed to produce weak, divided ‘failed states’, unable to become powerful allies of China or anyone else. Thus the much-criticized failure to plan in Iraq was a plan in itself,” Glazebrook writes.

Under Saddam, Iraq was an independently-minded country which acted as a bulwark to US/Israeli hegemonic plans for the Middle East. So it had to be destroyed- not just “regime changed” but destroyed. That could be achieved by deliberately wrecking state institutions and infrastructure and making sure the Baath party, a non-sectarian organization which stressed Arab unity, was made illegal.

Libya, under Gaddafi, was an independently-minded country too which led to moves to strengthen African unity and oppose US hegemonic plans for Africa. So it too had to be destroyed and turned into a “failed state”.

Syria, under President Assad, also “stood in the way” on account of its alliance with Iran and Hezbollah. So it too was targeted for destruction. If Assad could be removed, all to the good, but even if he couldn’t then the country would be slowly bled to death through the backing, by the west and its regional allies, of violent “rebel” groups.

The side effects

In working to destroy these independently-minded countries (which all incidentally operated socialistic economies, with large nationalized sectors and which stood outside of the IMF/World Bank/WTO global financial dictatorship), it mattered little to the West that the governments of Saddam, Gaddafi and Assad were bulwarks against radical Islamic groups, such as Al-Qaeda. And that fighting against these governments, the West would be giving a major boost to such extremist organizations. On the contrary, the Western elites saw that jihadists and radical Islamic terrorist groups could aid their cause by fighting against the secular, socialistic regimes that they had targeted for removal.

The use of radical Islamic groups to further the West’s imperialist agenda isn’t new. It was of course deployed in the 1980s in Afghanistan, when US funded, trained and supplied military equipment to the Mujahedeen. Afghanistan in the 1980s was, in the words of John Pilger, the award-winning investigative journalist, “where modern jihadism began”- but the American role in promoting it is now conveniently forgotten.

This policy did not end with the fall of the Soviet Union. It continued whenever it could serve western elite interests. The role of the Zionist lobby has to be mentioned as it has been very important in influencing Western strategy.

In 1996 an Israeli think-tank produced the document “A Clean Break: a New Strategy for Securing the Realm,” advising the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Its authors were pro-Israeli US neocons, described as ‘prominent opinion makers’.

The document called for the removal of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, and for action to ‘roll back’ Syria. Fast forward six years. “With several of the "Clean Break" paper's authors now holding key positions in Washington, the plan for Israel to "transcend" its foes by reshaping the Middle East looks a good deal more achievable today than it did in 1996. Americans may even be persuaded to give up their lives to achieve it,”wrote Brian Whittaker in the Guardian in September 2002 as pro-Israel lobby made the case for war with Iraq on a daily basis.

It is indisputable that Israel-first politicians, pundits and journalists were at the forefront of the campaigns for military “intervention” not just against Iraq, but Syria and Libya too, and also were the ones pushing most relentlessly for the imposition of draconian sanctions on Iran, on account of an unproven nuclear weapons program.

Turning Iraq, Syria and Iran into weak and divided “failed states” would be wonderful news for Israel. Iraq, under Saddam Hussein, championed the Palestinian cause.

In 2003, the BBC reported how Saddam had paid out thousands of dollars to the families of Palestinian fighters killed by Israel.

“If you take out Saddam, Saddam's regime, I guarantee you that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region,” Benjamin Netanyahu told Congress in September 2002. Syria, of course is targeted by the pro-Israel lobby for its alliance with Iran and Hezbollah, while Iran has long been perceived as Public Enemy number one in Tel Aviv.

The hypocrisy of these “Israel-firsters” has been off the scale, the very same people who warn us about the “threat” of Islamic extremism at home and who play the Islamophobic card at every opportunity were the same people who were working round the clock for “regime change” against Middle Eastern governments which were opposed to those religious extremists.

Indeed, if there is any group of people within the Western elites most to blame for rise of groups like ISIS/IS its hardline Zionists. Israel’s enemies in the region simply have to become the US and Britain’s enemies too, even if targeting these “enemy” countries gives a major boost to radical Islamic terror groups. Protecting Israel has to come before everything else. Even before countering Al-Qaeda and its affiliates.

In 2006 Syrian security forces foiled an attack by an Al-Qaeda affiliate on the US Embassy in Damascus

‘Syrian officials came to the aid of the Americans. The US is grateful for the assistance the Syrians provided in going after the attackers’ said White House press secretary Tony Snow- but the gratitude didn‘t last too long. A few years later, the US- under strong pressure from the pro-Israel lobby, was working for the violent overthrow of the government in Damascus. But if fighting Al-Qaeda (and other radical groups like ISIS) was the priority, then the US would be working with Syria not against it- as I argued in an article in 2008.

Little too late

The fact is that ISIS/IS would not be in the strong position it is today, if the US hadn’t decided to topple Assad. WikiLeaks has revealed that in 2010 the Syrian government offered to partner the US to fight groups like ISIS.

Instead of course, the US chose to fight, through terrorist proxies, the Syrian government.

ISIS/IS have been the major beneficiaries of such a policy. As Richard Becker, of the Answer Coalition recently told RT:

“It was the intervention of the United States in Iraq and the US and its partners in Syria, which laid the groundwork for the ISIS organization to develop. In 2010-2011, remember they said they carried out six actions in the whole year. They (ISIS) were practically defunct until the United States and its allies supported the armed opposition inside Syria and gave an opportunity to this organization to develop and come back into Iraq.”

Now of course, the permanent war lobby express their concern for Christians and Yazidis being massacre or threatened with massacre by jihadists in Iraq, but there was little, if any concern from the same people as Christians and other religious and ethnic groups were slaughtered by ‘rebels’ in Syria, with arms supplied by the west and its regional partners.

Anyone who spoke out about the killings of Christians in Syria risked being labeled an ‘Assad apologist’by establishment gatekeepers, whilst a despicable smear campaign was waged against a 61-year-old Syrian-based peace campaigner and nun, Mother Agnes-Mariam, who had been invited to speak at a Stop the War meeting in Britain.

Neither was there too much humanitarian concern over the massacring of black Africans by western-backed anti-Gaddafi “rebels” in Libya. “Racist pogroms were characteristic of the Libyan rebellion from its very inception, when 50 sub-Saharan immigrants were burnt alive in Al-Bayda on the second day of the insurgency,” writes Dan Glazebrook.

But now all of a sudden, it is deemed acceptable by elite gatekeepers, to highlight the massacre of Christians and ethnic religious minorities in Iraq.

If the West is genuinely concerned about countering ISIS/IS then there clearly needs to be a radical change in Middle Eastern policy. For a start we need a “clean break” with the Zionist lobby which has pushed for the violent removal of secular governments in the region, a policy which has caused so much bloodshed and chaos and greatly strengthened the hand of radical Islamic extremists. If the aim is to weaken such radical groups, then that means working with countries like Syria and Iran and not against them regardless of the opinions of Benjamin Netanyahu.

It means encouraging strong states in the region, and secular governments that bring all their people together and which do not follow divisive sectarian policies which exclude large sections of the community. The best bulwark against ISIS/IS is strong states, not weak ones.

Yet there’s little sign of any changes occurring to Western foreign policy and perhaps we would be very naïve to think there would be. British Prime Minister David Cameron and his fellow hawks were prepared to take Britain into a war with Syria last summer, but Cameron does rule out British military intervention against ISIS/IS in Iraq. If the US is really so concerned about ISIS/IS why did they wait until now to take action, and not act earlier in the summer, when it was clear that ISIS/IS was making huge advances? Neocon pundits meanwhile tell us on no account should an anti-ISIS/IS front with Iran and Syria be formed-that really would have Tel Aviv fuming.

The conclusion has to be that while the US wants to check the ISIS/IS advance and protect US personnel (and oil fields) in Iraq, it doesn’t want to destroy it. Radical extremists who behead their enemies and persecute religious and ethnic minorities are far, far, too useful to be destroyed as who knows when the Empire will need them next?
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT nor of Fight for Your Faith

Early Will I Seek You - Psalm 63

By Dennis Edwards --

Here’s a beautiful Psalm for the day. Contrary to many of today’s modern precepts, the psalmist does not remind us to reach within ourselves for that divine strength within, but rather, to reach out to God. We reach out through our desperation of spirit in prayer and communing with the Lord in solitude, praise and meditation.

O God, you are my God; early will I seek you: my soul thirsts for you, my flesh longs for you in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is;[1]

The metaphor here is similar to that in Psalm 42 which states, “As a hart (deer) pants after the water brook, so pants my soul after you, O God.”[2] Is your soul panting after God? Are you longing for God? Or have the cares of life and the abundance of riches choked or suffocated that longing within you for his presence in your life? Get up early and seek God before you start the day. The old song says “I met God in the morning, when the day was at its best, and all day long his presence lingered.” [3]His presence will be with you throughout the day, if you seek him early. Here’s Ralph Cushman’s full poem:

The Secret

I met God in the morning
when the day was at its best,
And His Presence came like sunrise,
Like a glory in my breast.

All day long his Presence lingered,
All day long He stayed with me,
And we sailed in perfect calmness
O'er a very troubled sea.

Other ships were blown and battered,
And other ships were sore distressed,
But the winds that seemed to drive them,
Brought to us a peace and rest.

Then I thought of other mornings,
With a keen remorse of mind,
When I too had loosed the moorings,
With his presence left behind. 

So, I think I know the secret,
Learned from many a troubled way:
You must seek Him in the morning
If you want Him through the day![4]


We see a similar thought in another Psalm, “My voice shall you hear in the morning, O Lord; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto you, and will look up.” [5] Are you taking that upward look in the morning, directing your thoughts and prayers and requests to the Lord for the day?

To see your power and your glory, so as I have seen you in the sanctuary. Because your loving kindness is better than life, my lips shall praise you; Thus will I bless you while I live: I will lift up my hands in your name.[6]

We often see at the music concerts the audience lifting up their hands as they sing along with the singers. The idea of lifting up our hands in praise actually comes from God’s word. In Psalm 134 we find the lines: “Behold, bless you the Lord, all you servants of the Lord, which by night stand in the house of the Lord. Lift up your hands in the sanctuary, and bless the Lord.”[7] Paul similarly admonished, “I will therefore that all men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting.”[8] There is some spiritual principle in lifting up ones hands in praise unto God. Our spiritual adversary knows this truth and tries to imitate and use its function for his own worship.

My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness; and my mouth shall praise you with joyful lips:[9]

In five verses we can already count three times when the psalmist notes the importance of praise in our mouths and thankfulness of spirit that helps us to glorify God and overcome our adversary. Praise and being positive draws God’s spirit to us. In Psalm 22 we read that God dwells in the praises of His people.[10] Being praiseful and positive are powerful spiritual weapons against our spiritual adversary.

When I remember you upon my bed, and meditate on you in the night watches.[11]

When you cannot sleep at night, spend time meditating on God and counting your blessings. You won’t be disappointed.

Because you have been my help, therefore in the shadow of your wings will I rejoice.[12]

It has not been the psalmist’s own strength that has pulled him through or the looking for the spiritual strength within, but rather in the seeking unto God and trusting in His strength and His help. Because of his trust in the Lord, the believer is able to maintain a positive, praiseful spirit.

My soul follows hard after you: your right hand upholds me.[13]

Again, the psalmist trusts in God for his help and does not rely on his own strength. Are you trusting in the Lord with all your heart, and leaning not to your own understanding? He promises that if you acknowledge him in all your ways, he will direct your paths.[14]

But those that seek my soul, to destroy it, shall go into the lower parts of the earth. They shall fall by the sword: they shall be a portion for foxes. But the king shall rejoice in God; everyone that swears by Him shall glory: but the mouth of them that speak lies shall be stopped.[15]

And so ends the psalm. Are you rejoicing in God? Is He your glory? Or are you speaking lies? Please choose God today. He says, “I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live: that thou mayest love the Lord thy God, and that thou mayest obey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him: for he is thy life.”[16] If you do so, you will not be disappointed.



Footnotes:
[1] Psalm 63:1
[2] Psalm 42:1
[3] Cushman, Ralph: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuPL-FHBWhs
[4] Ibid
[5] Psalm 5:3
[6] Psalm 63:2-4
[7] Psalm 134:1,2
[8] 1Timothy 2:8
[9] Psalm 63:5
[10] Psalm 22:3
[11] Psalm 63:6
[12] Psalm 63:7
[13] Psalm 63:8
[14] Proverbs 3:5,6
[15] Psalm 63:9-11
[16] Deuteronomy 30:19,20

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