Will religion go the way of dinosaurs?

Find out the answer in this article from CNN.

The world's fastest-growing religion is ...

By Daniel Burke, CNN Religion Editor

Despite predictions that religion will go the way of dinosaurs, the size of almost every major faith -- sorry, Buddhists -- will increase in the next 40 years, according to a study released Thursday by the Pew Research Center.

The biggest winners, Pew predicts, will be Islam and Christianity.

Islam, the world's fastest-growing faith, will leap from 1.6 billion (in 2010) to 2.76 billion by 2050, according to the Pew study. At that time, Muslims will make up nearly one-third of the world's total projected population of about 9 billion people.

Why are some people so wicked and devilishly callous?

The story of the crashed Germanwings plane is still unfolding but sufficient details have emerged which proved that the plane was purposely crashed by the co-pilot after encouraging the captain to leave the cockpit and then locking him out.

Whether the co-pilot's action resulted from his medical problems has not been properly ascertained. Acquaintances of the co-pilot have recounted previous statements from him suggesting he might have been planning this gruesome act for a long time.

I guess, plane makers should be thinking of making cockpits accessible from both ends to captains or both pilots.

The action of the co-pilot to say the least is wicked. He was ready to die. But he decided to take over 100 innocent people along. What is the differece between him and suicide bombers?

Here is how the New York post reported the story.

Images with messages

  The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree: he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon 

Want a good quality of life? Pay attention to your biological and spiritual heart

Wanted: A Pure Heart

TEXT: MARK 7:14-23

Key Verse: “For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders” (Mark 7:21). 

In many ways, the heart serves as the engine room of the human body. From biological perspective, it is the organ that pumps oxygen and blood to different parts of the body. It is this activity of the heart that sustains life. On the other hand, the heart is the stream out of which flow “the issues of life.” It is the chamber where thoughts are incubated before they transform into action. Your heart’s condition is a most critical determinant of the quality of life you live. 

This is the truth Christ teaches in the text. The teaching came as part of His response to the hypocritical posture of the Pharisees who faulted His disciples for eating with unwashed hands. The Pharisees practised a religion of forms and rituals with little or no morality. In their pretence to adhere strictly to the Mosaic laws, they added traditions that made them to neglect the weightier matters of the law. Soon, “the tradition of the elders” became their cardinal doctrine and standard. Ceremonial hand-washing before meal was one of such traditions. Their faultfinding penchant could not bear to see Christ’s disciples flout this tradition. 

Christ’s message here is clear: defilement does not come from eating with unwashed hands or from what we eat. This does not excuse the evil of consuming hurtful substances. It simply implies that defilement and wickedness come “from within, out of the heart of man.” The list of sins mentioned in verses 21 and 22 are just a fraction of the soul-damning evils that man’s depraved heart can produce. 

Your natural heart needs regeneration or spiritual rebirth. This happens when you approach God penitently, acknowledging, confessing and forsaking your sins with faith in Christ as your Saviour and Lord. After this experience, you must keep your heart with all diligence to avoid polluting that precious fountain. 

Source: Daily Manna

The greatest thing in the world IV

The defense

     Now I have a closing sentence or two to add about Paul's reason for singling out love as the supreme possession. It is a very remarkable reason. In a single word it is this: it lasts. "Love," urges Paul, "never faileth." Then he begins again one of his marvellous lists of the great things of the day, and exposes them one by one. He runs over the things that men thought were going to last, and shows that they are all fleeting, temporary, passing away.

    

 "Whether there be prophecies, they shall fail" It was the mother's ambition for her boy in those days that he should become a prophet. For hundreds of years God had never spoken by means of any prophet, and at that time the prophet was greater than the king. Men waited wistfully for another messenger to come, and hung upon his lips when he appeared as upon the very voice of God. Paul says, "Whether there be prophecies, they shall fail" This Book is full of prophecies. One by one they have "failed"; that is, having been fulfilled their work is finished; they have nothing more to do now in the world except to feed a devout man's faith.

Believers must step up their game in soul winning

This report by the CNN is alarming. The Governments of the concerned nations have a lot to do and must quickly set out to neutralize all avenues employed by Boko Haram to undermine them. Much more than that, believers should step up their game in soul winning as men willingly flock to the to their eternal foe and enemy of the Church, the devil. It is the same case with ISIS. One marvels at what attract young people to join these merchants of sorrow and death.

Young Cameroonians joining Boko Haram
By Ngala Killian Chimtom, for CNN

Cameroon's security forces are predicting a drawn-out battle with Boko Haram as evidence filters out that the insurgents are now recruiting there.

"We don't doubt that Boko Haram is recruiting in Cameroon," said Col. Joseph Nouma, commander of Operation ALPHA, a special military operation set up by Cameroon's government to fight the Nigerian terrorist group.

He says communities bordering Nigeria have been emptied of men between the ages of 10 and 45.

"Many of them are found across the border in Nigeria, training with the terrorists," he told CNN.

God's way of saying "black, brown, yellow, red and white - all are Mine"

I once watched a South African farmer unconvincingly trying to prove that nature supports apartheid. That was even in post-apartheid South Africa. But it seems nature has its own way of refuting man's lies and God has ample means of powerfully expressing where He stands. Read this interesting story from the CNN about a pair of twins, one black, the other white.

UK twins turn heads: One is white, the other black

By Michael Pearson, CNN

Here's a pair of twins no one will have trouble telling apart: One is white, and one is black. Thanks to a rare quirk of nature, Lucy is the alabaster-skinned redhead, and Maria has their part-Jamaican mother's dark skin and hair.

Images of the Aylmer sisters of Gloucester, United Kingdom, rocketed around the Internet this week when a British newspaper carried their story.

"I can't stop crying! This is all so amazing," Lucy Aylmer posted on Facebook. The girls were born to a white father and a biracial mom in 1997, according to the Daily Mail story that started all the fuss.