Parishioners at a California church where NBA legend Kobe Bryant worshiped Sunday morning two hours before he perished in a fiery helicopter crash along with his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna, and seven others in Calabasas, California, were so “stunned” when they got news of his death they could only respond initially with “silence.”

Julie Hermes, a spokeswoman for Our Lady Queen of Angels Catholic Church in Newport Beach told the Daily Mail that Bryant worshiped there on Sunday morning before his tragic end. On Sunday, she said, Bryant slipped in at the back of the service as usual and left early to avoid disturbing the other parishioners.

“He attended the 7 a.m. mass prior to going to the Orange County John Wayne Airport,” Hermes told the publication.

“I imagine he went straight to the airport, because the mass was 7 to 8 a.m. I’m told generally 7 a.m. was his mass. He was very discreet. He would come in and stay at the back, and his family too, and then he would usually leave a little earlier prior to the very end of the service,” she continued. “He was very much loved at the church, and he was very devout, very dedicated to his faith.”

A call for a downed helicopter and brush fire in Calabasas went out at 9:47 a.m. local time on Sunday, Los Angeles County Fire Chief Daryl Osby said.

Hermes said that when parishioners at the church heard about Bryant’s death they were in shock. She said she attended the first mass at the church in the aftermath of the tragedy and it was difficult.

“I went to the 12 p.m. mass that was dedicated to him. Every mass since has been dedicated to Kobe and the families of all the victims,” Hermes said.

“Everybody was stunned. It was like silence. Everybody was in shock. It was very still. When the 12 p.m. mass ended, because that was the first mass after anybody knew, everybody walked out in silence and were glued to their cell phones looking up any information they could get online,” she continued.

“Our parishioners knew him not just from church but from the community, because Kobe was a great part of this community. That’s how I know him too. I live very close to him in Newport Coast. He was a like regular guy, you wouldn’t know he was a celebrity. He would go out on his own without bodyguards,” she explained.

SOURCE: Christian Post, Leonardo Blair

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The Breakfast Club features celebrity interviews, Charlamagne tha God’s Donkey of the Day, Angela Yee’s Rumor Reports, DJ Envy’s mixes and so much more! Every guest visiting the world’s most dangerous morning show is grilled with their signature blend of honesty and humor. The results are the best interviews to be found on radio.

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A British woman, who was given hormone blockers and opposite sex hormones as part of a gender transition, is suing the clinic that gave her the drugs, arguing she was medically harmed.

As reported by the U.K. Times, Keira Bell, 23, a female who is among the increasingly visible chorus of what are known as “detransitioners” — persons who once lived and identified as transgender and underwent experimental medical regimens to alter their bodies and now regret it — is mounting a legal challenge against the lone gender clinic in the U.K., the Tavistock and Portman National Health Service Trust in London.

Bell, who was given the puberty-suppressing drugs and cross-sex hormones during her mid-teens, now says she found the experience of gender-transitioning traumatic and that the clinic’s approach to treating children is not lawful because the risks are not adequately explained and minors are incapable of giving consent to such interventions.

“She now very seriously regrets the process and feels that the way it was handled and her involvement in it was not appropriate,” Bell’s lawyer, Jeremy Hyam, told the U.K.’s highest court last week during the hearing.

Bell said in a statement after the proceedings concluded that she does not believe “that children and young people can consent to the use of powerful and experimental hormone drugs like I did.”

“The treatment needs to change so that it does not put young people, like me, on a torturous and unnecessary path that is permanent and life-changing.”

Bell, who is currently an unemployed IT engineer from Cambridge, has become the most prominent claimant in a case now being adjudicated as to whether young people can give consent to such life and body-altering medical practices amid ongoing and intensifying debate over transgender ideology, particularly as it relates to medical care and the Gender Recognition Act.

SOURCE: Christian Post, Brandon Showalter

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TEXT: 1 Timothy 4:1-6

1 Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils;

2 Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron;

3 Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.

4 For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving:

5 For it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.

6 If thou put the brethren in remembrance of these things, thou shalt be a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished up in the words of faith and of good doctrine, whereunto thou hast attained.

——–

The Westminster Shorter Catechism reads, “Prayer is an offering up of our desires unto God, for things agreeable to His will, in the name of Christ, with confession of our sins, and thankful acknowledgement of His mercies.”

One day when Martin Luther’s puppy happened to be at the table, he looked for a morsel from his master, and watched with open mouth and motionless eyes; Martin Luther said, ‘Oh, if I could only pray the way this dog watches the meat! All his thoughts are concentrated on the piece of meat. Otherwise he has no thought, wish or hope.”

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Now, if you are with us today, and you do not know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Saviour, your first prayer needs to be what we call the Sinner’s Prayer. First, please understand that you are a sinner, just as I am, and that you have broken God’s laws. The Bible says in Romans 3:23: “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.”

Second, accept the fact that there is a penalty for sin. The Bible states in Romans 6:23: “For the wages of sin is death…”

Third, accept the fact that you are on the road to hell. Jesus Christ said in Matthew 10:28: “And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” Also, the Bible states in Revelation 21:8: “But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.”

Now this is bad news, but here’s the good news. Jesus Christ said in John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

Just believe in your heart that Jesus Christ died for your sins, was buried, and rose from the dead by the power of God for you so that you can live eternally with Him. Pray and ask Him to come into your heart today, and He will.

Romans 10:9 & 13 says, “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved… For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

If you believe that Jesus Christ died on the Cross for your sins, was buried, and rose from the dead, and you want to trust Him for your Salvation today, please pray with me this simple prayer: Holy Father God, I realize that I am a sinner and that I have done some bad things in my life. For Jesus Christ sake, please forgive me of my sins. I now believe with all of my heart that Jesus Christ died for me, was buried, and rose again. Lord Jesus, please come into my heart and save my soul and change my life today. Amen.

If you just trusted Jesus Christ as your Saviour, and you prayed that prayer and meant it from your heart, I declare to you that based upon the Word of God, you are now saved from Hell and you are on your way to Heaven. Welcome to the family of God! Congratulations on trusting Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour. You have done the most important thing in life. For more information to help you grow in your newfound faith in Christ, go to Gospel Light Society.com and read “What To Do After You Enter Through the Door”. Jesus Christ said in John 10:9, “I am the door, by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.”

God loves you. We love you. And may God bless you.

Daniel Whyte III has spoken in meetings across the United States and in over twenty-five foreign countries. He is the author of over forty books including the Essence Magazine, Dallas Morning News, and Amazon.com national bestseller, Letters to Young Black Men. He is also the president of Gospel Light Society International, a worldwide evangelistic ministry that reaches thousands with the Gospel each week, as well as president of Torch Ministries International, a Christian literature ministry.

He is heard by thousands each week on his radio broadcasts/podcasts, which include: The Prayer Motivator Devotional, The Prayer Motivator Minute, as well as Gospel Light Minute X, the Gospel Light Minute, the Sunday Evening Evangelistic Message, the Prophet Daniel’s Report, the Second Coming Watch Update and the Soul-Winning Motivator, among others.

He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Theology from Bethany Divinity College, a Bachelor’s degree in Religion from Texas Wesleyan University, a Master’s degree in Religion, a Master of Divinity degree, and a Master of Theology degree from Liberty University’s Rawlings School of Divinity (formerly Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary). He is currently a candidate for the Doctor of Ministry degree.

He has been married to the former Meriqua Althea Dixon, of Christiana, Jamaica since 1987. God has blessed their union with seven children.

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The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 on Monday that a Trump administration immigration rule that has been criticized by some evangelical leaders who say it could prevent poor immigrant families from being reunited can go into effect, pending an appeal.

The court voted on ideological lines Monday in favor of the Department of Homeland Security, staying two lower court rulings that blocked the department’s “public charge” rule from going into effect until the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit can rule on the case.

The agency, through the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in 2018, introduced a rule that alters the way the federal government implements “the public charge ground of inadmissibility” for immigrants applying for visas and green cards who use taxpayer-funded government assistance such as food stamps, housing benefits of Medicaid.

The rule defines “public charge” as a person who “receives one or more public benefits.” The rule was approved after a 10-month public comment period that resulted in over 266,000 public comments.

Critics of the rule contend that it could give the DHS more discretion to deny visas and green cards to immigrants who rely too heavily on taxpayer-funded public assistance.

According to SCOTUS Blog’s Amy Howe, the government argued that it would suffer “effectively irreparable harm” if it is prevented from implementing the new rule until the Second Circuit can rule on the case.

“But, in light of all that’s come before, it would be delusional to think that one stay today suffices to remedy the problem,” wrote Justice Neil Gorsuch in a concurring opinion.  “The real problem here is the increasingly common practice of trial courts ordering relief that transcends the concurring cases before them. Whether framed as injunctions of ‘nationwide,’ ‘universal,’ or ‘cosmic’ scope, these orders share the same basic flaw — they direct how the defendant must act toward persons who are not parties to the case.”

SOURCE: Christian Post, Samuel Smith

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