Christian Bale Thanks Satan for Inspiring Him in Golden Globe Acceptance Speech
Christian Bale won the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy Film this week, and he thanked Satan for inspiring him.
The Batman Dark Knight actor accepted the Best Actor award on Monday for his role as Dick Cheney in the comedy film Vice, which came out on Christmas Day.
Bale began his acceptance speech by thanking his wife Sibi Blazic and Adam McKay, who CBN News reports is the film’s writer and director.
The 44-year-old actor then went on to thank the Devil. “Thank you to Satan for giving me inspiration on how to play this role,” Bale said to the sound of laughter.
While many people saw this as a poor attempt at a joke, The Church of Satan praised the actor for his comment.
The group hailed Bale on Twitter writing, “To us, Satan is a symbol of pride, liberty and individualism, and it serves as an external metaphorical projection of our highest personal potential. As Mr. Bale’s own talent and skill won him the award, this is fitting. Hail Christian! Hail Satan!”
To us, Satan is a symbol of pride, liberty and individualism, and it serves as an external metaphorical projection of our highest personal potential. As Mr. Bale’s own talent and skill won him the award, this is fitting. Hail Christian! Hail Satan! https://t.co/ILuK8TFZXi
Pastor John Gray Reveals that He Almost Took His Own Life Last Year
Megachurch Pastor John Gray admitted during a sermon on New Year’s Eve that he almost committed suicide in 2018.
Gray, who was publicly criticized in 2018 for meeting with Donald Trump at the White House and then again for buying his wife a $200,000 Lamborghini, told his Relentless Church congregation on New Year’s Eve that 2018 almost killed him. In a video recording of the sermon, Gray started the sermon by pointing to the fact that he was wearing all black. He said, “I’m standing here, because this is my funeral outfit.”
He continued, “2018 tried to kill me, so I thought I’d dress for the occasion.”
Gray told the congregation that he was not innocent in his suicidal ideation, however. He said, “The truth is some of the stuff that tried to kill me I helped. Nobody wants to shout. Everybody needs to know some stuff wasn’t the devil, some stuff was you. It would be great if we shout for that too because when you shout for that what you’re saying is I take personal responsibility.”
He pastor continued, “I literally thought about how I could end my life and still get to Heaven and somehow my kids would not be scarred but there was no way I could figure out how to do it. And I’m not the only person that thought about that. I’m not the only person the devil attacked in that area.”
Gray then revealed to the congregation that he began to…
Federal Court Rules Masterpiece Cakeshop Baker Can Sue Colorado for ‘Anti-Religious Bias’
A federal court has ruled that Colorado Christian baker Jack Phillips may continue to sue the state in a claim that says the state had an “anti-religious bias” against him.
ADF Senior Counsel Jim Campbell, who is representing Phillips in the case, said the state acted in “bad faith” when it ruled against him in previous litigation. Phillips is the Colorado baker who famously refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple in 2012.
In a ruling last week, U.S. District Judge Wiley Daniel said Phillips can continue to fight the state over claims of bias.
“The same agency that the Supreme Court rebuked as hostile to Jack Phillips has remained committed to treating him unequally and forcing him to express messages that violate his religious beliefs,” Campbell said.
“We look forward to moving forward with this lawsuit to ensure that Jack isn’t forced to create custom cakes that express messages in conflict with his faith.”
In June 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the state of Colorado showed an anti-religious bias when the state courts ruled to punish Phillips for refusing to make a same-sex wedding cake.
Harvest Bible Chapel to Drop Defamation Case against Critics
Harvest Bible Chapel filed a defamation lawsuit in October 2018 against three critics, but on Tuesday, after the court denied their request to keep certain documents confidential, the megachurch decided to drop the case.
In a statement posted to the church’s website, the Executive Committee of Elders wrote, “In October of 2018, we filed a lawsuit asking a civil court to restrict the actions of those attempting to interfere in the life of our church by publicizing false and distorted information about our church.”
The statement continues, “On advice of counsel, we still believe their actions to be illegal. However today the court ruled, contrary to expectation and legal precedent, that it would not stay further discovery while the case is under defendants’ motions to dismiss, nor would it restrict the publicizing of that discovery during the trial process.”
“The court appears unwilling to protect our many friends, including those with whom we seek to reconcile. In good conscience we cannot knowingly subject innocent people, in many instances against their will, to a full subpoena process,” the statement added.
The church elders then confirmed that they would be dropping the case because they believe that God would have encouraged the judge to rule in the churches favor if the case was meant to proceed.
Topic: Placing God First In Life – Key to a Year of Fulfilment [Seeds of Destiny 9 January 2019 Devotional]
Scripture: Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all other things shall be added unto you. Matthew 6: 33.
Thought For The Day: To place or put God first in your life is to come first in life.
There are visions, aspirations, ambitions, goals and targets that one usually sets at the beginning of every year to realize, attain or achieve within the year. At times, these could be part of a decision package commonly referred to as New Year resolutions.
Today, being the ninth day of January, I am convinced that you might have set out your visions, desires, aspirations and ambitions for the year. But even if you have not yet done that, it is very necessary to see things in the eyes of the spirit before they arrive.
Now, it is important to know one key that would make you achieve your goals this year, and that is your dedication to God. It is not just enough to set goals and targets for the year; it is important to know and serve the God who would ensure that you are alive to see them come to pass and make them possible in your life.
According to our anchor Scripture, when you seek God first, other things would be added to you.
Beloved, the place you give to God in your life determines the place you would occupy in life. When you seek God first in life, you cannot come last in life. This is because God proves Himself in the lives of dedicated people, that is, those who seek Him first in their lives. Abraham was one great example of a person who was dedicated to God by placing God first above everything in life. In Abraham’s generation, he was ahead of everyone in everything. This means, to place God first in life is to come out first in life. When God is first in your life, you cannot come last in life.
My counsel is, make up your mind to be brutally dedicated to God this year and beyond. Make God the first priority of your life and you will stand out in life.
Remember this: To place or put God first in your life is to come first in life.
Assignments:
Make up your mind to put or place God first in your life in everything you do.
Make God the first priority in all your life’s decisions.
relationship.
Prayer: O Lord, I ask for the grace to place You first in my life in all that I do this year and beyond, Lord in Jesus’ Name.
FOR FURTHER UNDERSTANDING, GET THIS MESSAGE: UNDERSTANDING DEDICATION.
Today In History: 09/01/1793- Jean-Pierre Blanchard made the first successful balloon flight in the U.S.
Daily Reading: Genesis 20:1 to 22:24, Matthew 7:15 to 29, Psalm 9:1 to 12, Proverbs 2:16 to 22.
Amazing Fact: Worldwide, the airline industry generates about US$640billion.
Quote: There can be no rising without reason. Culled from BE WISE AND RISE by Dr Paul Enenche.
Today’s devotional was written by Pastor Paul Enenche of the Dunamis International Gospel Centre (DIGC), headquartered at Abuja, Nigeria, with Pastor Paul and Becky Enenche, as the Senior Pastors. It is a power-packed arena where God’s Presence, Principles and Power are at work for the salvation, healing and restoration of human destinies and dignities
Flatimes Notice Board: Until you are born again, God ever abiding presence will never be with you. You must be born again to enjoy continuous victory. Please say the displayed prayer below in faith:
Lord Jesus, come into my life. I accept You as my Lord and Personal Saviour. I believe in my heart You died and rose from the dead to save me. Thank You Lord for saving me, in Jesus name Amen.
If you just prayed the prayer of salvation online please send your testimonies and prayer request to [email protected], 07026385437 OR 08141320204.
Topic: What Kind of Savior Is He? [Our Daily Bread 9 January 2019 Devotional]
Read: John 6:47–51, 60–66, Bible in a Year: Genesis 23–24; Matthew 7
From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him. John 6:66
Last year, friends and I prayed for healing for three women battling cancer. We knew God had the power to do this, and we asked Him to do so every day. We’d seen Him work in the past and believed He could do it again. There were days in each one’s battle where healing looked like it was a reality, and we rejoiced. But they all died that fall. Some said that was “the ultimate healing,” and in a way it was. Still the loss hurt us deeply. We wanted Him to heal them all—here and now—but for reasons we couldn’t understand, no miracle came.
Some people followed Jesus for the miracles He performed and to get their needs met (John 6:2, 26). Some simply saw Him as the carpenter’s son (Matthew 13:55–58), and others expected Him to be their political leader (Luke 19:37–38). Some thought of Him as a great teacher (Matthew 7:28–29), while others quit following Him because His teaching was hard to understand (John 6:66).
Jesus still doesn’t always meet our expectations of Him. Yet He is so much more than we can imagine. He’s the provider of eternal life (vv. 47–48). He is good and wise; and He loves, forgives, stays close, and brings us comfort. May we find rest in Jesus as He is and keep following Him.
Prayer: Thank You, Jesus, that You are the kind of Savior we need. Wrap us in Your love and bring us confident rest in You.
I trust in you, Lord; I say, “You are my God.” Psalm 31:14
INSIGHT John 6 forms a critical turning point in Jesus’s public ministry. Following the feeding of the five thousand and walking on water, Jesus presents His “bread of life” message. While opposition from the religious community had been rising, Jesus’s followers responded to this message with a massive defection. They defected because of three factors. First, they demanded a sign from Him (vv. 30–31) after He had just given them a sign in the miraculous multiplication of bread and fish. Then they misunderstood Jesus’s origin (vv. 41–42), and finally they misunderstood the important realities of His message (v. 52). Because they didn’t understand who He was, they would never be able to embrace what He did or taught. Bill Crowder
Principal Bans Students from Giving Bibles to Friends during Lunch
The principal of a Pennsylvania high school violated the rights of students by preventing them from passing out Bibles during lunch, says an attorney for a legal group that specializes in religious liberty.
“In November, the students in the Bible club asked for permission to hand out Bibles to their friends in the cafeteria during non-instructional time,” Jeremy Samek, senior counsel for the Independence Law Center Senior, told WPMT/FOX-43. “And the principal of the school told them they could not hand out Bibles.”
It is not the first time the students at Cumberland County High School in Mechanicsburg, Pa., have had an issue with the principal, Samek said.
“It’s important to [the students] that the school district understands what their rights are and so all student’s rights can be protected,” he said.
The school district released a statement to WPMT, saying it “respects the rights of students to express themselves and distribute materials” and also “recognizes that exercise of that right must be limited by the District’s responsibility to maintain an orderly school environment and to protect the rights of all members of the school community.”
“Accordingly,” the statement added, “students do have the right to distribution of non-school materials…
A federal district court issued an order on Friday that enables Jack Phillips to proceed with a lawsuit against the state for its hostility toward him and his religious beliefs.
The owner of Masterpiece cake shop famously won a Supreme Court case over his right to refuse to make a gay wedding cake.
According to Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), the group supporting Phillips, he was targeted by an attorney who asked him to create a cake designed pink on the inside and blue on the outside, which was to celebrate a gender transition from male to female.
Philips declined to make the request stating once again that the cake would express a message that conflicted with his religious beliefs.
Despite his Supreme Court victory, the State of Colorado ruled that there was “probable cause” to believe he was legally obligated to make the cake.
The high court ruled that Colorado cannot treat Phillips differently than other cake artists who decline custom projects based on the messages they convey.
“The same agency that the Supreme Court rebuked as hostile to Jack Phillips has remained committed to treating him unequally and forcing him to express messages that violate his religious beliefs,” ADF Senior Counsel Jim Campbell said.
“Colorado is acting in bad faith and with bias toward Jack. We look forward to moving forward with this…
Open Heaven 9 January 2019 Wednesday Daily Devotional By Pastor E. A. Adeboye – You Need Strategic Planning
Topic: You Need Strategic Planning (Open Heaven 9 January 2019)
Memorise: “For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?”- Luke 14:28
Read: Luke 14:28-32, Nehemiah 1:11-2:8(KJV)
Luke 14:28-32: 28 For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?
29 Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him,
30 Saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish.
31 Or what king, going to make war against another king, sitteth not down first, and consulteth whether he be able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand?
32 Or else, while the other is yet a great way off, he sendeth an ambassage, and desireth conditions of peace.
Nehemiah 1:11-2:8: 11 O Lord, I beseech thee, let now thine ear be attentive to the prayer of thy servant, and to the prayer of thy servants, who desire to fear thy name: and prosper, I pray thee, thy servant this day, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man. For I was the king’s cupbearer.
Nehemiah 2:1-8 1 And it came to pass in the month Nisan, in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes the king, that wine was before him: and I took up the wine, and gave it unto the king. Now I had not been beforetime sad in his presence.
2 Wherefore the king said unto me, Why is thy countenance sad, seeing thou art not sick? this is nothing else but sorrow of heart. Then I was very sore afraid,
3 And said unto the king, Let the king live for ever: why should not my countenance be sad, when the city, the place of my fathers’ sepulchres, lieth waste, and the gates thereof are consumed with fire?
4 Then the king said unto me, For what dost thou make request? So I prayed to the God of heaven.
5 And I said unto the king, If it please the king, and if thy servant have found favour in thy sight, that thou wouldest send me unto Judah, unto the city of my fathers’ sepulchres, that I may build it.
6 And the king said unto me, (the queen also sitting by him,) For how long shall thy journey be? and when wilt thou return? So it pleased the king to send me; and I set him a time.
7 Moreover I said unto the king, If it please the king, let letters be given me to the governors beyond the river, that they may convey me over till I come into Judah;
8 And a letter unto Asaph the keeper of the king’s forest, that he may give me timber to make beams for the gates of the palace which appertained to the house, and for the wall of the city, and for the house that I shall enter into. And the king granted me, according to the good hand of my God upon me.
Bible in One Year: Matthew 18-19, Isaiah 7:10-8:10
Open Heaven 9 January 2019 Wednesday MESSAGE:
Many people do not realise that the Almighty God is a strategist and a God of order. This divine character is evident in the story of creation itself. The orderliness and sequence of the project of creation can only have come from the mind of a master strategist. The light came first, then the firmament, then the gathering together of the waters and the appearance of dry land, followed by the vegetation upon which the animals would feed, before the animals themselves were created (Genesis 1:1-13). Everything was in place before man was created. What a wonderful God we serve! No wonder the Psalmist in Psalm 53:1a says:
“The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.”
In today’s memory verse, the Lord Jesus Christ shared with us the divine wisdom embedded in strategic planning. It takes strategic planning for anyone to succeed in life, and the good news is that the greatest strategist is our Father in heaven. The ability to strategise wisely is therefore available to us when we give our lives to God through Jesus Christ. Irrespective of how disjointed you may appear to be as a person, as a born-again Christian, you are a partaker of the divine nature of God, and so you are a strategic planner by nature (2 Peter 1:4). You need to understand this truth and begin to apply it to your reality.
Nehemiah was one strategic builder. Through strategic planning, he was able to do what seemed humanly impossible. Though very passionate and driven about his mission to rebuild the house of God and the walls of Jerusalem, Nehemiah was not presumptuous in his zeal. His strategy was built on the foundation of first seeking divine guidance through prayer and fasting (Nehemiah 1:4). Some children of God, maybe due to unrealised hidden pride, would not pray like Nehemiah did to find mercy in the sight of the king (Nehemiah 1:11). To succeed in life, we need the favour of God to be manifested in the attitude of men towards us. No wonder Luke 2:52 says:
“And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.”
The good news is that even though human beings are complex and unpredictable, they are still under the control of their Maker. Establishing this truth in Proverbs 21:1, the Holy Spirit says:
“The king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will.”
Nehemiah strategically presented his case before the king, and because he had presented his case to the Lord before going to the king, he got what he wanted: leave of absence, authority to build, the materials for the project and security in the course of building. The project would have ended in failure if any of these variables was missing. Beloved, be strategic in the planning of your life under the guidance of the Holy Trinity.
Open Heaven 9 January 2019 Wednesday Action Point:
Strategically plan how you will achieve your vision and objectives for this year.
Open Heaven 9 January 2019 Wednesday Hymn 3: Trust and Obey
1. When we walk with the Lord In the light of His word What a glory He sheds on our way! While we do His good will, He abides with us still, And with all who will trust and obey
Chorus:
Trust and obey,
For there’s no other way
To be happy in Jesus,
But to trust and obey.
2. Not a shadow can rise, Not a cloud in the skies, But His smile quickly drives it away; Not a doubt nor a fear Not a sigh nor a tear, Can abide while we trust and obey.
3. Not a burden we bear, Not a sorrow we share But our toil He doth richly repay; Not a grief nor a loss, Not a frown nor a cross, But is blest if we trust and obey.
4. But we never can prove The delights of His love Until all on the altar we lay; For the favour He shows, And the joy He bestows, Are for them who will trust and obey.
5. Then in fellowship sweet We will sit at His feet, Or we’ll walk by His side in the way; What He says we will do Where He sends we will go Never fear, only trust and obey.
Open Heaven 9 January 2019 Wednesday Daily Devotional guide was written by Pastor E.A. Adeboye, the General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, one of the largest evangelical church in the world and also the President of Christ the Redeemer’s Ministries. The Open Heavens devotional application is available across all mobile platforms and operating systems: iOS, Android, Blackberry, Nokia, Windows Mobile and PC. Open Heaven 9 January 2019 Wednesday Daily Devotional.
Flatimes Notice Board: Until you are born again, God ever abiding presence will never be with you. You must be born again to enjoy continuous victory. Please say the displayed prayer below in faith:
Lord Jesus, come into my life. I accept You as my Lord and Personal Saviour. I believe in my heart You died and rose from the dead to save me. Thank You Lord for saving me, in Jesus name Amen.
If you just prayed the prayer of salvation online please send your testimonies and prayer request to [email protected], 07026385437 OR 08141320204.
‘All the Glory’ Goes to Christ, Says Clemson Coach Dabo Swinney after National Title
Clemson had just won its third national championship Monday night in a rout of Alabama, but head coach Dabo Swinney wasn’t interested in staying in the spotlight.
“All the credit – all the glory – goes to the good Lord,” Swinney said during a nationally televised postgame interview.
The Tigers defeated the favored Crimson Tide 44-16 for their second national title in three years. Clemson also because the first college football team to finish 15-0.
Swinney has built the program into a powerhouse. He was named interim coach six games into the 2008 season when former coach Tommy Bowden resigned after a 3-3 start. At the time, Swinney was the wide receivers coach. He was named head coach after the Tigers defeated rival South Carolina that year to become bowl eligible.
Clemson slowly climbed the college football ladder under Swinney, finishing9-5 in 2009, 6-7 in 2010 and then 10-4 in 2011, when the Tigers won their first ACC title since 1991.
The Tigers have won at least 10 games eight straight seasons. They’ve also won four straight conference titles and have played in the College Football Playoff all four of those seasons.
“You can’t write a Hollywood script like this,” Swinney said, referencing his rise from a wide receivers coach to a successful head coach. Prior to coaching at Clemson, he worked in real estate….
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