Daily Devotional for Thursday March 10, 2011
The Economy Continues to Decline as Christians Better Prepare for Real Persecution
(Haggai 1:5,6)
"Now this is what the LORD Almighty says: 'Give careful thought to your ways. You have planted much, but have harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it.' " Haggai 1:5,6
The economy continues to decline as Christians better prepare for real persecution. It is sad that you won't hear the truth about the economy on Christian TV and radio. I understand they don't want to talk about it, since they are afraid it will scare people into not giving them money. So they simply ignore the most important event happening in our nation today that is affecting most everyone's life. I have also yet to see anyone in the Christian media with the foresight to warn the people about the coming persecution of Christians. This is not something that may happen, this is something that IS going to happen, and very soon!
Let me give you the bottom line on the economy and some counsel. I shared with you several year ago, that God could very easily use the economy as a form of His judgment on this nation for our sins and wickedness. Over the past few years, tens of millions of people have lost their jobs, and many have lost millions in the markets and other investments. I remember distinctly telling you that the reason all of the economists, business executives, politicians, and pundits had no answer since they were looking for an economic answer to fix a spiritual problem.
Despite borrowing trillions of dollars, all of the governments efforts have failed. Once again, there are no real answers on the horizon other than to keep giving away money we don't have to different sectors. DHL, the worldwide freight carrier, closed out all of its United Stats operations. Circuit City, the box store electronics giant went bankrupt. The United States Post Office, for the first time in its history layed off 40,000 workers and is billions in the red.
Over the course of the last few years, the United States Government now has an equity stake in the major banks, the auto industry, the largest insurance company in the world, as well as the real estate market which is the sector of the economy that started this economic disaster. Even though the government claims that these are only short term positions to help these various industries during this downturn, as I told you in an earlier Devotional, they are going to be in these equity positions for a long time because there are no signs of any turn around for quite a while in any of these sectors.
We have become a quasi socialistic nation and under the Obama administration, that is only going to continue as the government takes over the health care industry and looks to enact massive new socialist programs that amounts to little more than wealth redistribution.
Coming at the same time as the economic crisis, is going to be the first real taste of persecution Christians in this nation have ever tasted. President-elect Obama ran his Presidential campaign with typical Chicago political thuggary. He sought to intimidate and silence anyone who opposed him. With the power of the Presidency, you have seen a very scary form of intimidation like never before. He is planning to create a Civilian National Security Force. He has refused to define what this group will do, but it sounds eerily like some sort of private army, like Hitler's SS.
If you think I am stretching things, look no further than his "Internet Army" of 3.1 million. These people are already mobilized and patrol the Net to go after anyone who has the audacity to question Obama and target those who oppose him. This was a chief function of his online army during his bid for the White House, and along with the mainstream media, has been an important group he has used to intimidate, and destroy if need be, those who oppose him. Trust me, Christians who speak out against his support of killing babies, the radical homosexual agenda, and his favor towards Palestine, are targets of his internet army. I deal with it daily!
My friend, the Godless, the secular humanists, those who have rejected Christ and the Bible, see this as their big opportunity to silence once and for all those who still hold to faith in Jesus Christ and believe the Bible is the Word of God and our only Truth. As aggressive as they have been in the past, they will be even more aggressive in the coming months and years. Add to their efforts activist judges who legislate from the bench, and you have a climate ripe for real persecution of those who take their faith into the public square.
Please understand, most churches won't be affected because they don't speak up now, and if they do, it is behind closed doors. Those who will be the targets of this persecution are those who will dare to go into the public square and declare the Truth of the Bible. They will become easy targets as they will be labeled as hate mongers, purveyors of hate speech, intolerant, radicals, extremists, and find little sympathy from the Christ-less masses for whatever they have to endure.
I love you and care about you so much. Listen to me! As for the economy, there are incredible flaws in the business models of many of these companies that were bailed out. All the money in the world can't make a bad business work. It only allows that business to stay afloat. That is why government intervening in the free markets is foolish, unless it plans to nationalize those businesses like the communist countries do. I don't see anything positive happening in the economy for a very long time, if ever, if indeed this is one of the ways God is going to punish this nation.
For those who love the Lord, He will watch over you. You may lose your job, but God will give you a new job. You may lose money in the markets, God will insure your needs are met. You may be struggling right now, but don't worry, God has not forsaken you and will provide. Many of you God will give great favor to and despite the economic downturn, you will flourish and prosper! You have a good job and are earning a good wage so that God can use you in a big way to help keep His work funded and moving forward.
I know the economy is a huge issue and is gong to continue to be a huge issue. I pray today as God keeps you employed, keeps funds flowing through your home, and even in this downturn, gives you great favor and blessings in your finances. May He entrust in your hands resources, so that you can help employ those resources to further His work here on earth. The enemy is well financed in their quest to lead souls to hell. We need to be well financed as we fight satan for those same souls, helping to lead them to everlasting life with their Creator in Heaven!!!
As for the coming persecution. I refuse to change or compromise, even though I realize that I am going to have a huge bulls-eye on my back. I have already been targeted by the IRS for speaking out. I did NOTHING to even remotely violate our tax exemption, and they are in a quandary since I spoke out on the spiritual issues of a white Republican as hard as I did a black Democrat. So I don't know how they are going to say I influenced the outcome of a political campaign. Not to mention, there have been hundreds, thousands who blatantly violated their exemption by endorsing and actively working to elect a certain candidate, something I have never done.
The fact is, I refuse to be intimidated or bullied and will keep pushing forward to reach even more people with God's Truth no matter what the obstacles may be. Now more than ever our work here is critical to insure God's Truth is heard in the marketplace by the lost and hurting masses. Every day I hear of churches closing their doors, ministries having to shut down for a lack of funding. We have been down over 65% in our donations from just two years ago. However, God is our source and I continue to walk in faith each day, knowing that the Lord can raise up new people to support our work financially, and give favor to those in the Liveprayer family who faithfully support His work here.
From and email I received yesterday: "Bill, I wanted to add this word of testimony and encouragement. I am on disability for a sometimes severe and painful chronic condition. My husband got laid off two years ago and hasn't found a job yet. I have been determined to keep up my support of Liveprayer, even though logically I didn't know how I could. I still don't know, but by God's grace, I haven't missed one month of my support of your critical work for the Lord. WHAT A BLESSING IT IS FOR ME TO BE ABLE TO DO THIS! Thank you for the opportunity to be part of a ministry that is laying up treasures in heaven!!!"
So many like this dear friend, make the sacrifce each month to help me keep our work for the Lord moving forward. Please take a moment today and pray about what sacrifice you can make to help me. Liveprayer has cut back all we can to continue our daily operations, feeding over 2.4 million souls worldwide each day, sending personal responses to over 40,000 emails every day for prayer and counsel, all for free.
We are on the verge of having our permanent location at ground zero finalized, to give us a high profile physical presence to daily proclaim the Gospel to the lost and hurting in that great city. Along with the daily TV program on superstation WWOR, we have the vehicle to literally change the spritual course of tens of millions of lives as well as this nation and world!
As we head into the last few weeks of March, we still need to bring in $10,000 to finish our February budget, the last $10,000 left over from what we were short in our 2009 operations, and the $40,000 for March. In addition, we need to continue raising the funds to open the permanent home of the "9-11 Christian Center at Ground Zero," that includes airing the Liveprayer TV program on superstation WWOR in the New York City media market.
God has blessed many reading this words today with resources. Please pray about helping me today so these current needs are met.
***You can send your gift to Liveprayer on your major credit card at our website www.liveprayer.com under the "Donation" button, or you can give from your PayPal account by using my email address, bkeller@liveprayer.com , or you can mail it to: Liveprayer, 6660 46th Avenue North, St. Petersburg, Florida 33709. All gifts to Liveprayer are 100% tax deductible.
When this brief journey through life is over, what do we have to show for it? The only lasting legacy we have are those things we did for the Lord. I have taken my stand and will proclaim His truth with my dying breath. Today, I am asking you to pray about joining me and let's turn this nation back to God and His Truth!!!
Will you help me???????
In His love and service, Your friend and brother in Christ, Bill Keller