The Teaching of Adversity, Oswald Chambers, My Utternost for His Highest, Daily Devotionals

In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world —John 16:33

The typical view of the Christian life is that it means being delivered from all adversity. But it actually means being delivered in adversity, which is something very different. “He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. No evil shall befall you, nor shall any plague come near your dwelling . . .” (Psalm 91:1,10)— the place where you are at one with God.

If you are a child of God, you will certainly encounter adversities, but Jesus says you should not be surprised when they come. “In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” He is saying, “There is nothing for you to fear.” The same people who refused to talk about their adversities before they were saved often complain and worry after being born again because they have the wrong idea of what it means to live the life of a saint.

Read more here:

Defiance of the pregnant gipsies: A judge has blocked the eviction of 150 gipsies from a playing field because three are expecting. SUE REID found them with swanky cars, flash TVs - and not a hint of shame Daily Mail

Wearing a tight white cotton top that shows every curve of her pregnancy, Jane Lee stands at the door of her caravan on a pretty Staffordshire town’s playing fields. 

It is a perfect summer evening and the 27-year-old is puffing relentlessly on a cigarette just a few days before having her fifth baby.

A tall blonde, she watches contentedly as her children (aged eight, six, four and two) play on the grass. Occasionally, one of them darts into the caravan to sit on the sofa and watch the cartoons blaring out from a big flatscreen TV inside.

They say they are sick of the pitch being besieged by gipsies, who they claim use the bushes for lavatories, drop litter and churn up the grass with the wheels of their caravans, lorries, quad bikes and large cars.

There is also the constant hum of generators feeding power into the caravans, with cables spread across the ground.

One woman with a house overlooking the pitch has made unproven claims of theft — which the gipsies indignantly denied to me. There is talk of house prices nosediving.

A football match scheduled during a previous visit by the travellers in March was abandoned, and a one-day children’s tournament later this month, involving 90 teams from all over the country, must be cancelled if the gipsies don’t move on. No wonder tempers are running high.

One of the tournament’s organisers, Roland Hulse, has criticised the local Newcastle Borough Council for failing to stop the gipsies getting on the land in the first place, then failing to kick them off once they had arrived a fortnight ago.

Yesterday he said angrily: ‘This is the biggest one-day football tournament of its kind but it’s in jeopardy if the gipsies don’t leave soon.

‘More than 400 kids will be without their football. If these were ordinary people on this land, they would be arrested for criminal damage and have their quad bikes confiscated. What makes them any different?’

Read more here:

What Christians Get Wrong About Discipleship, Relevant Magazine by Ann Swindell

T

o those of us who follow Jesus, discipleship should be a central aspect of our faith. This is because Jesus commanded His followers—in what is commonly referred to as “The Great Commission”—to “go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:18-20).

It’s not a suggestion that Jesus makes here. It’s a command, a charge.

What is discipleship? Put simply, discipleship means intentionally partnering with another Christian in order to help that person obey Jesus and grow in relationship with Him—so that he or she can then help others do the same. Jesus taught His disciples to follow Him and obey His commands so that they could lead others to do the same after His death, resurrection and ascension. The Apostle Paul continues the pattern with Timothy and encourages him to keep the cycle going: “What you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also” (1 Timothy 2:2).

Discipleship Isn’t Easy.

Salvation is free, but discipleship will cost us our lives. Jesus put it bluntly:

“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self?” (Luke 9:23-25)

To be a disciple of Jesus means that we have given up our lives in order to follow Him wholeheartedly and unreservedly. It means that our lives are no longer our own—they are His.

Read more here:

Lunacy on sea: As Ministers agree to the world's biggest wind farm off Brighton, has Britain ever succumbed to a more catastrophic folly? Daily Mail

What should be our reaction to daft stories like the one recently reported in the Daily Mail about the 60ft wind turbine put up by the Welsh government outside its offices in Aberystwyth to proclaim to the world just how ‘green’ it is?

Erected at a cost of £50,000 to the taxpayer, it turned out that this turbine was so absurdly inefficient it was providing only £5 worth of electricity a month. It would take more than 750 years to make the money back.

In recent years, we have seen plenty of little tales like this, showing how often those who build these mini-turbines just to promote the wonders of wind power seem to get horribly caught out.

There was, for instance, the windmill put up next to a school in Portland, Dorset, which had to be switched off because it was killing so many seagulls that the headmaster had to come in early every morning to remove their corpses, so the children wouldn’t be upset.

Read more here:

From Eritrea and Sudan, the new migrant queue at Calais: Latest illegal encampment to spring up has hundreds who are currently waiting for the first chance to escape Daily Mail

Immigrants waiting in Calais, to get into the UK.

  Hundreds of migrants set up new illegal camp in French port of Calais

  Squalid, tented squat on town's outskirts has been nicknamed 'Jungle 2'

  It was set up two months after previous one in the town was bulldozed 

  Most of the migrants in the camp are from Eritrea, Sudan and Ethiopia  

They are desperate, defiant – and determined to get to England.

Many had scaled mountains, crossed deserts and sailed across an ocean to get here. 

Some of their companions had drowned, perished from starvation or been arrested before they made it.

They have nicknamed it Jungle 2 – a squalid, tented squat on the outskirts of the French port. The previous one in the town was bulldozed two months ago. 

That followed the clearance in 2009 of the original Jungle area on the outskirts, and the razing of the notorious Sangatte refugee centre in 2002.

All of that was meant to have put an end to the constant, ever-growing flow of hopefuls waiting to cross the Channel by any means possible. 

All it did was to drive them to other parts of Calais.

+5

Desperate: Two migrants try to break into a container lorry

 And so, Jungle 2 is currently a miserable but convenient stepping-stone to the UK for more than 500 itinerants, a population rapidly swelling with families fleeing Eritrea, Sudan and Ethiopia.

So it is not surprising that on Friday – despite threats of eviction, alleged beatings from police and an international outcry by homeless charities and migrant help groups – so many insisted they would stay for as long as it takes to get to England.

As one teenage Eritrean put it: ‘We will get there eventually.’

The new Jungle is situated on the seaward side of a road used by lorries heading to the port.  It is a swathe of wasteland and sand dunes, owned and used by a chemical factory to bury supposedly non-toxic waste. 

Read more here:

Further Reading:

DAILY MAIL COMMENT: The still-gaping holes in Britain's borders 

We will curb the parking cowboys, says Cabinet Minister: Victory for Mail campaign as official probe is launched into bully boys, Daily Mail

 Eric Pickles

  Communities Secretary Eric Pickles said rogue firms will not be tolerated, and launched Government investigation

  Parking squads across the country issue official-looking £100 fines, in some cases targeting the elderly and disabled

  Senior adviser to David Cameron today said the abuse by parking firms is worse than the PPI scandal

  Founders of parking firms have become rich from motorists' misery - including a CBE adviser to John Prescott 

Parking cowboys who threaten drivers with huge ‘fines’ will face a Government investigation, in a victory for the Daily Mail.

Communities Secretary Eric Pickles said ‘bully boy’ tactics would not be tolerated and rogue firms could be prosecuted.

The probe was announced as a leading adviser to David Cameron said abuse by private parking squads was worse than the PPI scandal.

Over the past week, the Daily Mail has revealed the aggressive tactics used by firms to coerce hundreds of thousands of drivers into paying inflated charges.

The parking squads issue official-looking £100 tickets, often to drivers just a few minutes late returning to their cars. Elderly and disabled people have been specifically targeted at hospitals and High Street stores.

Meanwhile, the firms’ founders have become multi-millionaires on the back of motorists’ misery. As the Mail reveals today, they include David Taylor CBE – who was a special adviser to John Prescott when he was Deputy Prime Minister.

Last night, Mr Pickles said: ‘We will stand up to rogue practices by corporate bully-boys, and we will be investigating the clear abuses that the Daily Mail has identified.

'It is not acceptable for any firm to be making money through misleading marketing or aggressive enforcement tactics.’

He warned major High Street firms they could also be breaking the law by employing parking cowboys and said they risk boycotts from consumers.

Mr Pickles said the Government was already ‘taking firm action to rein in the over-zealous town hall parking wardens who make life a misery for local shops, undoing Labour’s war on the motorist’.

Ros Altmann, a government adviser and pensions expert, compared the abuses to the PPI scandal, in which customers were mis-sold payment protection insurance.

Read more here:

Further Reading:

Ticket the old, they'll always pay: How the ruthless parking cowboys tell their wardens to exploit the vulnerable Daily Mail Parking Campaign

The parking ticket fat cats - one's a chum of Prezza and two drive Aston Martins. Meet the men who've made millions from motorists' misery 

Scientist who claims fracking is dangerous and argues against drilling applications is a 'fraud who has lied about his credentials' Daily Mail

·        David Smythe accused of being less than totally honest over his credentials as shale gas expert

·        Retired geologist has been prominent in highlighting dangers of fracking

·        Professor at his old university accuses him of 'pseudo-scientific scaremongering'

·        Geological Society demands he stops claiming to be chartered geologist

·        Mr Smythe insists he has done extensive research into unconventional energy extraction

• 

 The retired geologist and former punk rock guitarist has been prominent in highlighting the dangers of fracking and last week helped to persuade a county council to reject an application to drill an exploratory shale well.

But a professor at his old university now accuses him of ‘pseudo-scientific scaremongering’.

The Geological Society has also written to Mr Smythe – who has the title ‘Emeritus Professor of Geophysics, University of Glasgow’ – demanding that he stops claiming to be a chartered geologist.

Glasgow University, where he last worked in 1998, has told him he must not suggest that its academics share his views. And Prof Paul Younger, Glasgow’s professor of energy engineering, said Mr Smythe – who played bass guitar in the 70s punk band The Rezillos – was unqualified to give expert evidence on fracking, having retired 16 years ago.

’He has published nothing on (shale gas) in any proper scientific forum – no doubt because he knows he would never get past peer review with his pseudo-scientific scaremongering

Read more here