The Field is the World (Matt. 13:38)

The old man had been a slave in a foreign land his entire life. Today, as he was spending his customary time with God, he had come to understand that his people’s captivity was about to come to an end. He must have felt delight to know that bondage was about to end for his people. But he also felt an overwhelming sense of shame. He and his people ought to have known this was coming. They should have prepared. The Law told them what to do. Have you been looking for clues to God’s will for your life? What the prophet Daniel did in Daniel 9 forms a great model for us all in seeking God’s will: First, he was consistently reading the Bible. That’s a way of hearing from God regularly, knowing Him and putting His plan first. Second, this had prepared him to know what to do in a specific situation. He found out (by reading Jeremiah 25:11) that the captivity would be seventy years long. But from Leviticus 26:32-45 he knew that meant he could be the one to intercede for Israel. Experience applyi...

My kids love lizards. Living in Florida as we do, we get to see a lot of them. The ones we see around our house all have a fascinating trick. They change their body color against whatever background they crawl on. They do it to blend in with their surroundings so that they are safer from the attacks of predators. It also makes them more effective predators because it enables them to ambush insects who can't detect them as easily. After rolling down my garage door last week, I made a sad discovery. One little fellow's camouflage had been all-too-good! I didn't see him as I closed the door and he had been trapped and crushed in the seam. Under certain circumstances it's better to stand out than trust your camouflage. We can either embrace conformation to the image of Christ, or be squeezed into the pattern of the world. Sometimes it's better to stand out than trust your camouflage. In Numbers 22-24, a strange prophet named Balaam tried to "sit on the fence" ...

Revelation 4:1-11 S: Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created. (Revelation 4:11, KJV). O: Exodus 28:17-20 lists the stones on the breastplate of the High Priest: And thou shalt set in it settings of stones, even four rows of stones: the first row shall be a sardius, a topaz, and a carbuncle: this shall be the first row. And the second row shall be an emerald, a sapphire, and a diamond. And the third row a ligure, an agate, and an amethyst. And the fourth row a beryl, and an onyx, and a jasper: they shall be set in gold in their inclosings. (Exodus 28:17-20, KJV). The Jasper is the last, the sardius is the first stone. Whatever else God's appearance in this vision suggests, it demonstrates that He is the first and the last. He is the central figure of history and creation. The 24 elders and living creatures bow down and confess that everything was created by Him and for His pleasu...

This is the first installment of the WebEx "Webinar" conducted by GMO to publicise the launch of our Jesus2020 campaign. Jesus2020 Segment1 View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own.

This is the second installment of the WebEx "Webinar" conducted by GMO to publicise the launch of our Jesus2020 campaign. Jesus2020 Segment2 View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own.

This is the third installment of the WebEx "Webinar" conducted by GMO to publicise the launch of our Jesus2020 campaign. Jesus2020 Segment3 View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own.

This is the fourth installment of the WebEx "Webinar" conducted by GMO to publicise the launch of our Jesus2020 campaign. Jesus2020 Segment4 View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own.

This is the fifth installment of the WebEx "Webinar" conducted by GMO to publicise the launch of our Jesus2020 campaign. Jesus2020 Segment5 View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own.

This is the sixth installment of the WebEx "Webinar" conducted by GMO to publicise the launch of our Jesus2020 campaign. Jesus2020 Segment6 View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own.

By Mark Winz , Worldwide Challenge Magazine: Numbers in graphic include countries and territories -- Graphic by Tina Meyer In less than 30 years the JESUS film's reach has met or surpassed that of long-standing companies like Levi Strauss & Co., founded in 1853, and Coca-Cola, founded in 1886. Even Federal Express, founded in 1971, can't deliver the film to every place it's been shown. The JESUS Film Project's ® goal is to reach every person on earth with the message of Jesus in a language he or she can understand. It has been translated into more than 1,000 languages.

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You may not yet have heard about the new movie from the creators of “Facing the Giants” and “Flywheel,” (two films I highly recommend for the spiritual issues they raise!), but on September 26, Sherwood Pictures' film “ Fireproof ” will be given limited release nationwide. I was invited to see a preview of the film at a local theater and was very impressed. There were no paid actors in the film; everyone volunteered their time—yet the drama, both in the tension between the main characters and in the action scenes onscreen, was intense. It is a very enjoyable film that will inspire and challenge viewers. Spontaneous applause burst out in the theater on several occasions; and when the Kendrick brothers (producers of all three films) addressed the audience, they received a standing ovation. More importantly, the strength of the movie is in the truth of the message it communicates. Kirk Cameron plays Caleb Holt, captain of a fire station who is a great leader, an honorable friend and ...

YWAM founder's talk about the use of Internet Evangelism as God's gift to reach the world today (see Episode 19!) Click here to get your own player. Please do pray God would continue to meet our needs, make our work effective and send other laborers to help us!

Here's a review of the movie "Expelled" which I submitted for the Orlando Sentinel last month. (It was rejected) I was trying to be as single-minded as I was capable of, focusing tightly on the concept to which the film also tries adhere, that true academic freedom would demand that students be able to evaluate honest portrayals of each idea. Currently, the way the law is being interpreted, that is not possible. Scopes and Darwin, it appears, lived in an era of more academic freedom than is possible today. In 1925, the famous " Scopes Monkey Trial ," in Dayton, TN, was about whether a teacher violated what was then accepted law in Tennessee--that no theory should be taught by a state-supported school which denied Biblical Creationism and substituted instead that man descended from a lower order of animals. At the time, the American Civil Liberties Union advertised in the local newspapers for a willing teacher to violate and challenge this law in court. John Scop...

Isn't it comforting to know that you're being prayed for? I know during Emily's recent Emergency Room visit dear friends in our hometown had contacted everyone they know and asked them to pray for Emily. When I learned that, it was real comfort in what could have been a desperate situation. Today (May 3, 2007) is National Day of Prayer, as well as Emily's 8th birthday. I want to ask anyone who might read this to pray for her, and drop me a line at sowers {at} thefieldistheworld {period} com, if you will. In case we haven't contacted you through e-mail or telephone, in case you haven't read our update in our prayer letter, or you need a summary, here's the situation: On Saturday, April 21, at about 12:30PM, Cindy was in line at a store with Emily and Luke, and Emily started telling Cindy she was tired and wanted to go home. That would have attracted no attention, except that Emily said it with a pronounced slur, like someone who needed speech therapy. We had ...

For those of you who thought the last book in the Bible, after the book of "Concordance," was called the book of "Maps," this might not be that interesting. http://www.openbible.info/ This site contains a Google Earth -compatible downloadable file which maps out every identifiable place found in the Bible...both Old and New Testaments. Ever wondered exactly how far Jonah was headed in the wrong direction when he took a ship bound for Tarshish after being told by God to go to Ninevah? Now you can map it out! (2717.15 miles!) Locate the seven churches in the Book of Revelation, Ai from the book of Joshua, the land of the Amelekites, Ammonites, Edomites, Midianites, Moabites, Jebusites, and Philistines, as well as the Valley of Jezreel, where the Battle of Armageddon will be staged. Because the Google Earth program has been constructed using satellite imagery, you get a very good impression of topography and surroundings; with the measurement tool, you can get a good...

Exciting? A little scary? Ready for the increased speed of information or barely keeping up now?

I've been going over the statistics for all of our sites in order to create a Google Earth Tour simulating typical results in an hour from Europe and Russia. (109, with 13 from Russia) It's astonishing to realize we got 4.7 million visitors to our websites last year. Every hour: 21 people from the UK 13 people from Russia 9 people from France 5 people from Austria 5 people from the Netherlands 5 people from Romania 4 people from Sweden 3 people from Greece 3 people from Poland 3 people from Hungary 3 people from Norway 3 people from Spain 2 people from Bulgaria 2 people from Belgium 2 people from Ireland 2 people from the Ukraine... ...and someone from: Croatia, Lithuania, Italy the Czech Republic, Latvia, Switzerland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Macedonia, Finland, and Malta... ...are exposed to the Gospel through GMO 's ministry.

Our church hosted Vacation Bible School the week before last, as I'm sure many of our friends' churches did. Cindy volunteered to head up the "craft time" and, perhaps in the process of her preparation, (including applying iron-on transfers to 100 t-shirts), has developed some back and arm pain. Cindy has a back condition called " Scheuermann's Disease ," so she's very susceptible to back injuries. We ask that you pray God will relieve her pain. Luke enjoyed himself at Vacation Bible School--a little too much! He tripped while running in the gymnasium, and fell, hitting his head above his right eye. The injury required four stitches, which he endured with silent courage. What a brave little man! Emily invites all her neighborhood friends to church. She was a disappointed that her friend Alex couldn't go to VBS with us, but her grandmother allowed her to go with us to last Sunday evening's service. She was pretty excited--it was her first time...

Some of you may be aware of our latest prayer request: Emily's vision. She was diagnosed last month by an optometrist with "Latent Hyperopia," which is, basically farsightedness. The problem is, she has likely had this condition for some time...and during the early years of development, if vision doesn't work too well, the brain tends to shut down input from the bad eye. That's what's happening in Emily's case. The optometrist recommended something called "vision therapy" which is a program of treatment based on, we have discovered in subsequent research, questionable science. This week, we got an appointment with a pediatric ophthalmologist in Orlando who prescribed glasses for her and has informed her that, although she's 20/20 in her right eye, 20/30 in glasses will be the best she can hope for. In his opinion, having just turned 7 last month, she's beyond the point at which patching the good eye and forcing the brain to interpret vis...