"I can admire a person who gets up in the early morning hours because prayer is important, but I hardly know what to make of a man who gets out of bed in the dark because the act of prayer is so pleasurable. Clearly, I have something to learn.

"In order to learn to love to pray, as opposed to loving the idea of praying, one must experience the feeling while praying that you are at the center of reality. This runs contrary to common notions—that prayer, for instance, is a retreat from the real world, that prayer is a kind of luxury that we hope someday to be able to afford"

Dr. Daniel Taylor
Deepening Your Conversation With God
Preface

1. There is a monstrous potential for evil in blithely assuming that all your private imaginations are supernatural promptings that come to you as divine revelations from the Holy Spirit.
   
2. Those who order their lives by such an assumption are being willfully gullible and sinfully superstitious, and they have no biblical warrant for the practice. In fact, such a mindset is hostile to the biblical concept of discernment.
   
3. Claiming God told you something when in fact He did not is a profoundly wicked kind of presumption whose fruits are always evil. In fact, it was a capital crime under Moses' law.
   
4. That kind of presumption, paired with a declining concern about biblical doctrine has unleashed an untold amount of mischief in the visible church over the past century.

By RAMIT PLUSHNICK-MASTI
Associated Press Writer

MEGIDDO PRISON, Israel

Israeli prisoner Ramil Razilo was removing rubble from the planned site of a new prison ward when his shovel uncovered the edge of an elaborate mosaic, unveiling what Israeli archaeologists said Sunday may be the Holy Land's oldest church.

The discovery of the church in the northern Israeli town of Megiddo, near the biblical Armageddon, was hailed by experts as an important discovery that could reveal details about the development of the early church in the region. Archaeologists said the church dated from the third century, decades before Constantine legalized Christianity across the Byzantine Empire.

"What's clear today is that it's the oldest archaeological remains of a church in Israel, maybe even in the entire region. Whether in the entire world, it's still too early to say," said Yotam Tepper, the excavation's head archaeologist.

Israeli officials were giddy about the discovery, with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon calling the church "an amazing story."

Vatican officials also hailed the find.

"A discovery of this kind will make Israel more interesting to all Christians, for the church all over the world," said Archbishop Pietro Sambi, the Vatican envoy to Jerusalem. "If it's true that the church and the beautiful mosaics are from the third century, it would be one of the most ancient churches in the Middle East."

Razilo, who is serving a two-year sentence for traffic violations, was one of about 50 prisoners brought into the high-security Megiddo Prison to help excavate the area before the construction of new wards for 1,200 Palestinian prisoners.

Razilo was shocked to uncover the edge of the mosaic. The inmates worked for months to uncover all the parts of the mosaic _ the floor of the church, he said.

"We continued to look and slowly we found this whole beautiful thing," said Razilo, who used a sponge and a bucket of water to clean dirt off the uncovered mosaics Sunday.

Two mosaics inside the church _ one covered with fish, an ancient Christian symbol that predates the cross _ tell the story of a Roman officer and a woman named Aketous who donated money to build the church in the memory "of the god, Jesus Christ."

Pottery remnants from the third century, the style of Greek writing used in the inscriptions, ancient geometric patterns in the mosaics and the depiction of fish rather than the cross indicate that the church was no longer used by the fourth century, Tepper said.

The church's location, not far from the spot where the New Testament says the final battle between good and evil will take place, also made sense because a bishop was active in the area at the time, said Tepper, who works with the Israel Antiquities Authority.

The inscription, which specifies that Aketous donated a table to the church, indicates the house of worship predated the Byzantine era, when Christians began using altars in place of tables in their rituals, Tepper said. Remnants of a table were uncovered between the two mosaics.

The building _ most of which was destroyed _ also was not built in the Basilica style that was standard under the Byzantines, he added.

Stephen Pfann, a biblical scholar and professor at the Holy Land University, said the second and third centuries were transitional periods where people sought to define their religious beliefs and modes of worship. Iconography and inscriptions found in Nazareth and Caperneum _ places where Jesus lived _ show that people went there to worship, although most did so secretly.

"This was a time of persecution and in this way it is quite surprising that there would be such a blatant expression of Christ in a mosaic, but it may be the very reason why the church was destroyed," Pfann said.

The dig will continue as archaeologists try to uncover the rest of the building and its surroundings, including what they believe could be a baptismal site, Tepper said.

Joe Zias, an anthropologist and former curator with the antiquities authority, questioned the dating of the find, saying there is no evidence of churches before the fourth century. The building may have been in use earlier, but most likely not for Christian religious purposes, he said.

"They're going to be hard, hard-pressed to prove it ... because the evidence argues otherwise," Zias said.

"It just seems to me that if you put up a public web site, and you allow students, teeangers [sic], minors to post their thoughts and ideas, and not monitor it in an adult manner, you are asking for trouble," Gonzales said. "This particular web site has been a pain for all Bexar County schools for a long time now, and it just seems that the owners of MySpace-dot-com should be held accountable."

He said a decision about whether to file a lawsuit will be made by district lawyers.

1. Judgmental attitude that ignores completely the depth of depravity within our own hearts
2. The fact that it is only by grace that I am do not engage in the sins of pedophilia, homosexuality, rape, murder, and worse.
3. That we do not truly love those individuals
4. That our goal is not that these individuals would see and savor Christ, but rather be subject to his wrath

Nov 03 4:20 PM US/Eastern
PAINESVILLE, Ohio
The owner of a strip club says he's considering a six-figure offer from a church to buy and shut down the location.

Bill Martin, owner of the Just Teazin club in Painesville Township, 25 miles northeast of Cleveland, declined Thursday to identify the church or when he might decide whether to accept the unsolicited offer.

His club has been the target of protesters who object to it operating in the community.

Martin said it was a legitimate business protected by the Constitution. "I'm a strong believer in the U.S. Constitution. Until we become more like the Taliban, I don't see why people have a problem with upholding the Constitution," he said.

Martin said the Union Congregational Church bought a former club of his in the township. The building was bought in 1996 for $36,000 and became a recreation center and eventually was sold for use as a homeless shelter, the Rev. Roderick Coffee said.

Union Congregational isn't the church seeking to buy Just Teazin, Martin and Coffee said. Martin said he didn't know if he would open another club if Just Teazin was sold.

Our sinners’ song we loudly raise,
But who can care for sinners’ praise?
Or hear on high what we have said?
Perhaps the same who’ll raise the dead.
Though sin still makes our song sound wrong,
Your grace will tune us soon to sing.
And sing we will, this sinners’ song:
Oh, praise to Christ—the sinners’ king!

Our sinners’ song we bring—But why?
That you would make our awful cry
As sweet as angels’ sweetest chord.
Oh, turn your ear in mercy, Lord!
Though sin still makes our song sound wrong
Your grace will tune us soon to sing.
And sing we will, this sinners’ song:
Oh, praise to Christ—the sinners’ king!

Our sinners’ song we sacrifice—
Oh, surely there’s a higher price!
No, all that you would have us do
Is sacrifice our praise to you.
Though sin still makes our song sound wrong
Your grace will tune us soon to sing.
And sing we will, this sinners’ song:
Oh, praise to Christ—the sinners’ king!

• Post-It Flag Pen
• Post-It Flag Yellow Highlighter

1. Jacob needs to be able to discern what deserves focus (like probably not making a blogpost like this one)
   
2. Jacob needs heart and a competitive edge
   
3. Jacob needs a program to be in for next year and maybe even the summer.
4. Jacob needs hand over hand assistance to eat and drink (no disagreement there)
   
5. Jacob needs a fight.
6. Jacob needs to find a way to fight the demons of his past so he can cross the river into the land that holds so much promise (Not sure what that means).
7. The last thing Jacob needs is to exchange girl trouble for woman trouble (I'm not sure what this means either but it's probably true)
   
8. Jacob needs a home
9. Jacob needs to go forward, to head toward the Promised land (Phil 3:14 [shrug]).
10. Jacob needs an adoptive family who can provide the stability and structure he needs while patiently meeting his emotional and developmental needs ().
    

When Piper preaches he seems to do little more than bridge one Bible verse to the next, building to a deeply biblical conclusion. With some preachers you begin to feel that they could get along just fine without the Bible, but with Piper you feel that if he didn't have the Bible he'd have nothing to say.