It was delight to have another baptism in the sea this past month. Once again the emphasis was on youth with two of our young ladies choosing to be baptized. Also, a dear Ethiopian brother who has joined ( Beit Asaph ) this past year after struggling with the issue of faith for nearly 20 year, also made the decision to make this step. Our baptisms are by full immersion ( in the Jewish way ) and are pubic events. All three gave powerful testimonies of receiving God’s love and their desire to serve Him. Told by Even & Maala Thomas
When God powerfully raised Yeshua form the dead by means of the Holy Spirit. That same Holy Spirit raise us from the dead.
Romans 1: 7 to 9 and 16 to 17
7 I am writing to all of you in Rome who are loved by God and are called to be his own holy people.
May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace.
God’s Good News
8 Let me say first that I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith in him is being talked about all over the world. 9 God knows how often I pray for you. Day and night I bring you and your needs in prayer to God, whom I serve with all my heart[d] by spreading the Good News about his Son.
16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed [j]from faith to faith; as it is written, “[k]But the righteous man shall live by faith.” Rev. James ( Portal of Heaven Ministries )
Paul’s Prayer for the Ephesians 1 ( This should be our prayer to.)
15 I, too, have heard about your faith in the Lord Yeshuaand your love for all of God’s people. For this reason 16 I never stop thanking God for you. I always remember you in my prayers. 17 I pray that the glorious Father, the God of our Lord Yeshua Christ, would give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know Christ better. 18 Then you will have deeper insight. You will know the confidence that he calls you to have and the glorious wealth that God’s people will inherit. 19 You will also know the unlimited greatness of his power as it works with might and strength for us, the believers. 20 He worked with that same power in Christ when he brought him back to life and gave him the highest position in heaven. 21 He is far above all rulers, authorities, powers, lords, and all other names that can be named, not only in this present world but also in the world to come. 22 God has put everything under the control of Christ. He has made Christ the head of everything for the good of the church. 23 The church is Christ’s body and completes him as he fills everything in every way.
God Has United Jewish and Non-Jewish People As we can Jewish and Non Jewish pray to the same God.
Ephesians 2: 11-22 Names of God Bible (NOG)
11 Remember that once you were not Jewish physically. Those who called themselves “the circumcised” because of what they had done to their bodies called you “the uncircumcised.” 12 Also, at that time you were without Christ. You were excluded from citizenship in Israel, and the pledges[b] God made in his promise were foreign to you. You had no hope and were in the world without God.
13 But now through Christ Yeshua you, who were once far away, have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 14 So he is our peace. In his body he has made Jewish and non-Jewish people one by breaking down the wall of hostility that kept them apart. 15 He brought an end to the commandments and demands found in Moses’ Teachings so that he could take Jewish and non-Jewish people and create one new humanity in himself. So he made peace. 16 He also brought them back to God in one body by his cross, on which he killed the hostility. 17 He came with the Good News of peace for you who were far away and for those who were near. 18 So Jewish and non-Jewish people can go to the Father in one Spirit.
19 That is why you are no longer foreigners and outsiders but citizens together with God’s people and members of God’s family. 20 You are built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. Christ Yeshua himself is the cornerstone. 21 In him all the parts of the building fit together and grow into a holy temple in the Lord. 22 Through him you, also, are being built in the Spirit together with others into a place where God lives.
Paul Prays That God Would Strengthen Jewish and Non Jewish
Ephesians 3
14 This is the reason I kneel in the presence of the Father 15 from whom all the family in heaven and on earth receives its name. 16 I’m asking God to give you a gift from the wealth of his glory. I pray that he would give you inner strength and power through his Spirit. 17 Then Christ will live in you through faith. I also pray that love may be the ground into which you sink your roots and on which you have your foundation. 18 This way, with all of God’s people you will be able to understand how wide, long, high, and deep his love is. 19 You will know Christ’s love, which goes far beyond any knowledge. I am praying this so that you may be completely filled with God. 20 Glory belongs to God, whose power is at work in us. By this power he can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine. 21 Glory belongs to God in the church and in ChristYeshua for all time and eternity! Amen.
Rev. James
July 4 2015
Rev. James Portal of Heaven
Brothers and sisters United States happy birthday, I got some email for me Christian organization one about Abraham Lincoln and two more. As you read these things keep in mind. Canada and United States was founded on Christian morals and the Bible. Couple of things I found that brings forth the faith and morals that United States was founded on.
Rev. James (Portal of Heaven)
Death and Faith of Abraham Lincoln(7 votes)
[The death and faith of Abraham Lincoln]
THE SHOT THAT CHANGED THE WORLD:
THE DEATH AND FAITH OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 150 YEARS LATER
Abraham Lincoln was shot at 10:15 P.M. on Good Friday, April 14, 1865 by actor and Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth. The president was pronounced dead at 7:22 A.M. on April 15, only six days after Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered, effectively ending the Civil War.
If the gunfire at Concord, Massachusetts that started the Revolutionary War was “the shot heard round the world,” the attack that killed President Lincoln was truly “the shot that changed the world.” Those who succeeded him embarked on a program of punishing the South that led to generations of enmity. Race relations were poisoned; geographical divisions deepened. It took a century for African Americans to gain the full civil rights Lincoln envisioned for them.
A man whose election led to the Civil War was recently voted America’s greatest president, ahead of George Washington, Franklin Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt and Thomas Jefferson. What do we know about his faith? How did it forge his character and help create his lasting legacy?
July 4 2015
Rev. James
Portal of Heaven Ministries
The Shot That Changed The World The death and faith of Abraham Lincoln, 150 years later The shot that changed the world: The death and faith of Abraham Lincoln, 150 years later James C. Denison, Ph.D. President, Denison Forum on Truth and Culture April 2015 Abraham Lincoln was shot at 10:15 P.M. on Good Friday, April 14, 1865 by actor and Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth. The president was pronounced dead at 7:22 A.M. on April 15, only six days after Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered, effectively ending the Civil War. If the gunfire at Concord, Massachusetts that started the Revolutionary War was “the shot heard round the world,” the attack that killed President Lincoln was truly “the shot that changed the world.” Those who succeeded him embarked on a program of punishing the South that led to generations of enmity. Race relations were poisoned; geographical divisions deepened. It took a century for African Americans to gain the full civil rights Lincoln envisioned for them. A man whose election led to the Civil War was recently voted America’s greatest president, ahead of George Washington, Franklin Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt and Thomas Jefferson. What do we know about his faith? How did it forge his character and help create his lasting legacy? A questioning faith Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, near Hodgenville, Kentucky. His parents had been Quakers before moving to the farm which became Lincoln’s boyhood home. Lincoln’s mother, Nancy, died in 1818. His father affiliated with the Pigeon Creek Baptist Church by letter on June 7, 1823. The church met in homes before building its meeting house during Lincoln’s 11th year. It was 30 feet long and 20 feet wide, constructed of hewed logs. His sister Sally joined the church “by experience of grace” on April 8, 1826. Upon her death, she was buried in the church’s cemetery. Abraham was appointed sexton (a person who cares for the church’s buildings and often rings the bell during services), but never joined the church officially. His family moved to New Salem, Illinois, when Lincoln was 23 years of age. There was no church in New Salem. However, there were annual revival meetings which Lincoln found distasteful. According to biographer Elton Trueblood, Lincoln was “repulsed by the crude emotionalism of the annual revivals, including those conducted by his political rival, Peter Cartwright. Lincoln, being naturally alienated by the fierce competition between denominational groups, experienced some sympathy with those who, by their opponents, were termed ‘infidels.'” 2 In addition, Lincoln read Thomas Paine’s Age of Reason and Voltaire’s The Ruins, and participated in a debating society in which he often took positions counter to orthodox faith. His law partner William H. Herndon claimed that during this period, Lincoln wrote a book defending religious infidelity. There has never been any conclusive evidence about this supposed book. On July 31, 1846, congressional candidate Lincoln stated, “That I am not a member of any Christian Church, is true; but I have never denied the truth of the Scripture; and I have never spoken with intentional disrespect of religion in general, or of any denomination of Christians in particular. . . . I do not think I could myself, be brought to support a man for office, whom I knew to be an open enemy of, and scoffer at, religion.” A growing faith A severe depression in 1841 led Lincoln to a stronger and more personal faith. He wrote to a friend: “I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be one cheerful face on the earth. Whether I shall ever be better I cannot tell; I awfully forebode I shall not. To remain as I am is impossible.” Lincoln cancelled his engagement to Mary Todd, and despaired of the future. But through continuous reading of the Scriptures (especially the Old Testament), Lincoln came to believe in the idea of vocation—that God had a purpose for his life. He and Mary Todd were engaged again, and married on November 4, 1842. Eddie, their second son, died on February 1, 1850. His death produced a second spiritual crisis for Lincoln. Dr. James Smith, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Springfield, Illinois, befriended the Lincolns and preached Eddie’s funeral. He was a well-educated Scotsman and the author of “The Christian’s Defense.” Mary joined his church, and Lincoln began attending when he was in town. He told his brother-in-law, Ninian W. Edwards, that he had been reading Smith’s book “and have heard him preach and converse on the subject and am now convinced of the truth of the Christian religion.” He called Smith’s argument “unanswerable.” When their father was dying, Lincoln wrote his step-brother, John Johnston: “I sincerely hope father may recover his health, but at all events, tell him to remember to call upon and confide in our great and good merciful Maker, who will not turn away from him in any extremity. He notes the fall of a sparrow and numbers the hairs of our heads, and He will not forget the dying man who puts his trust in Him.” Lincoln still struggled with doubts, though his faith was growing stronger. To a friend he confided, “Probably it is to be my lot to go on in a twilight, feeling and reasoning my way through life, as questioning, doubting as Thomas did. But in my poor maimed, withered 3 way, I bear with me as I go on a seeking spirit of desire for a faith that was with him of olden time, who, in his need, as I in mine, exclaimed, ‘Help thou my unbelief.'” A presidential faith By the time he campaigned for and achieved the presidency, Lincoln had come to see himself as an instrument of the divine will, for the preservation and advance of the Union. In a letter of July 28, 1859, he admitted, “I must say I do not think myself fit for the Presidency.” On December 20, 1859 he noted, “I was losing interest in politics, when the repeal of the Missouri Compromise aroused me again.” He sought national leadership in the 1860 election to prevent the extension of slavery into hitherto free territories. The death of the Lincoln’s third son, Willie Lincoln, on February 20, 1862, produced yet another spiritual crisis for the president. Dr. Francis Vinton, rector of Trinity Church, New York, visited and shared the intellectual insight that God continues his interest in his creation after the death of the body just as before. Quoting Jesus’ statement, “For he is not a God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto him” (Luke 20:38), he assured the president, “Your son is alive.” Lincoln believed him, and came to believe that if God cannot be defeated by death, he cannot be defeated by a Civil War. As a result, in the words of Nathaniel W. Stephenson, “Out of this strange period of intolerable confusion, a gigantic figure had at last emerged. The outer and the inner Lincoln had fused. He was now a coherent personality, masterful in spite of his gentleness, with his own peculiar fashion of self-reliance, having a policy of his own devising, his colors nailed upon the masthead.” He came to believe deeply and permanently that God molds history and that he employs us to effect his purpose; and he came to see himself even more as an instrument of that purpose. His Cabinet and army leaders saw a new decisiveness in his leadership and decisions. He relieved General McClellan of his command and changed his approach to the Civil War, prosecuting it more vigorously, decisively, and confidently. A personal faith Abraham Lincoln would demonstrate an unusually strong and vibrant faith as he faced trials unlike any a president has ever encountered. His commitment to divine providence Consider Lincoln’s belief in the providence of God. According to him, the Civil War was an expression of the divine will. In September 1862, after the Second Battle of Bull Run, he wrote in Meditation on the Divine Will: 4 The will of God prevails. In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be wrong. God can not be for, and against, the same thing at the same time. In the present civil war it is quite possible that God’s purpose is something different from the purpose of either party—and yet the human instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of the best adaptation to effect His purpose. I am almost ready to say this is probably true—that God wills this contest, and wills that it shall not end yet. By His mere quiet power, on the minds of the now contestants, He could have either saved or destroyed the Union without a human contest. Yet the contest began. And having begun He could give the final victory to either side any day. Yet the contest proceeds. Lincoln did not believe in the existence of an independent order of moral values. In his mind, the “good” is anchored always and ever in the divine will. Consider his statement to Eliza Gurney, widow of the Quaker minister Joseph John Gurney (October 1862): We are indeed going through a great trial—a fiery trial. In the very responsible position in which I happen to be placed, being a humble instrument in the hands of our Heavenly Father, as I am, and as we all are, to work out his great purposes, I have desired that all my works and acts may be according to his will, and that it might be so, I have sought his aid—but if after endeavoring to do my best in the light which he affords me, I find my efforts fail, I must believe that for some purpose unknown to me, he wills it otherwise. If I had had my way, this war would never have been commenced; if I had been allowed my way this war would have been ended before this, but we find it still continues; and we must believe that he permits it for some wise purpose of his own, mysterious and unknown to us; and though with our limited understandings we may not be able to comprehend it, yet we cannot but believe, that he who made the world still governs it. His reliance on divine help As Lincoln left the Springfield Railroad Station on February 11, 1861 to assume the presidency, he told the crowd: I now leave, not knowing when, or whether ever, I may return, with a task before me greater than that which rested on Washington. Without the assistance of that Divine Being, who ever attended him, I cannot succeed. With that assistance I cannot fail. Trusting in Him, who can go with me, and remain with you and be everywhere for good, let us confidently hope that all will yet be well. To His care commending you, as I hope in your prayers you will commend me, I bid you an affectionate farewell. He would face frequent and persistent attacks as president. The Baltimore Sun editorialized after his election, “Had we any respect for Mr. Lincoln, official or personal, as a man, or as President-elect of the United States, his career and speeches on his way to 5 the seat of government would have cruelly impaired it. We do not believe the Presidency can ever be more degraded by any of his successors, than it has been by him, even before his inauguration.” The New York Herald, in 1864, called the president “a joke incarnated, his election a very sorry joke, and the idea that such a man as he should be the President of such a country as this, a very ridiculous joke.” Consider this New Year editorial in 1864: The people of the North owe Mr. Lincoln nothing but eternal hatred and scorn. There are 500,000 new made graves; there are 500,000 orphans; there are 200,000 widows; there is a bottomless sea of blood; there is the Constitution broken; there are liberty and law—liberty in chains and in a dungeon; thieves in the Treasury, provost marshals in the seats of justice, butchers in the pulpit—and these are the things which we owe Mr. Lincoln. Henry Ward Beecher said of Lincoln, “Not a spark of genius has he; not an element of leadership. Not one particle of heroic enthusiasm.” He faced such withering criticism with stoic determination and reliance on God’s power and providence, a faith that sustained him through the darkest era in American history. His beliefs about Scripture When working as a young lawyer, Lincoln was asked by a dying widow to make her will. She then asked him to read from the Bible, but he recited Psalm 23 and the opening verses of John 14 from memory. He read daily from The Believer’s Daily Treasure; or, Texts of Scripture Arranged for Every Day of the Year. This was a devotional book published in 1852; he wrote his name in it (an unusual act for him). In a letter to Mrs. Rebecca R. Pomeroy, nurse at the White House, he wrote regarding the Psalms, “They are the best, for I find in them something for every day in the week.” In 1850, he presented a lecture on the Bible in the First Presbyterian Church of Springfield. Those present reported that he offered the “ablest defense of the Bible ever heard from that particular pulpit.” Lincoln’s conclusion: “Nothing short of infinite wisdom could by any possibility have devised and given to man this excellent and perfect moral code. It is suited to men in all the conditions of life, and inculcates all the duties they owe to their Creator, to themselves, and to their fellow men.” In his Lecture on Inventions, delivered to the YMCA of Bloomington, Illinois (1858), he referenced the Bible 34 times. He told his long-time friend Joshua Speed, a religious skeptic: “You are wrong, Speed; take all of this Book upon reason that you can, and the balance on faith, and you will live and die a happier man.” His beliefs about prayer and worship 6 When his mother lay dying in 1818, she said to him, “I am going away from you, Abraham, and I shall not return. I know that you will be a good boy, that you will be kind to Sarah and to your father. I want you to live as I have taught you, and to love your Heavenly Father.” When Willie died, Lincoln said to the nurse, Mrs. Pomeroy, “I had a good Christian mother, and her prayers have followed me thus far through life.” He saw his own practice of prayer as maintaining a trust laid upon him by his dying mother. As president, Lincoln often attended the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church, where Dr. Phineas Gurley was pastor, purchasing a pew on the eighth row for Sunday worship. He frequently came to the Wednesday prayer meeting as well, but he sat listening in the pastor’s office with the door ajar. On the morning of his first inauguration, he read the conclusion of his remarks to his family. Then they left the room and he prayed audibly for strength and guidance. One of his secretaries, Noah Brooks, reported that he observed daily a time of prayer in the White House. He told Brooks, “I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go.” Lincoln’s chief form of prayer was seeking to know the divine will, and strength to follow it. During the 49 months of his presidency, he issued nine separate calls to public penitence, fasting, prayer, and thanksgiving. He was preparing a tenth when he was assassinated. His relationship with the church It is true that Abraham Lincoln never formally joined a church. However, there is evidence that he planned to join the First Presbyterian Church on the Easter after his assassination on Good Friday. Church membership is much more common in our day than it was in his. In 1860, only 23 percent of Americans were formal members of local churches. A hundred years later, 60 percent were church members. Lincoln could easily have joined a church and silenced his political critics on the subject, but refused for integrity’s sake. When a member of Congress asked why he never joined a church, he explained, “Because I have found difficulty, without mental reservation, in giving my assent to their long and complicated confessions of faith. When any church will inscribe over its altar the Savior’s condensed statement of law and gospel: ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind, and love thy neighbor as thyself,’ that church will I join with all my heart.” When the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church announced on a Sunday morning that the church would not be meeting in the foreseeable future, as Secretary of War Stanton had requisitioned the building for the care of wounded soldiers, Lincoln stood and said to 7 the pastor, “Dr. Gurley, we are too much in need of this church these days; we cannot let it be closed. I countermand the order.” Conclusion It has been noted that Abraham Lincoln was not only the “savior” of the Union but its creator. Secession was a typical and common threat before the Civil War. At times the West threatened to leave the East; New England considered seceding from the rest of the nation as well. Lincoln’s leadership and victory created of the various States, one Union. According to Dean Sperry, “The Civil War has proved to be not so much the fortress where the Union was preserved as the fiery furnace where men were smelted together into one political stuff.” Lincoln was the first president to speak openly and forcefully of his faith. He was the first to establish a Federal Thanksgiving (1863). The phrase “Under God,” which he uttered spontaneously at the Gettysburg Battlefield in November, 1863 (it appears in none of the five drafts of the message) is now an official part of our salute to the flag. “In God We Trust” was first used in Lincoln’s administration. According to historian Timothy L. Smith, “the religious conviction which permeated Lincoln’s statements and addresses set the tone for a new generation of public figures.” What is Abraham Lincoln’s enduring legacy? Our 16th president gave us the Union, and proof that a government of, for, and by the people shall not perish from this earth. He gave us emancipation, driven by the theological conviction that each of us is created by God. Lincoln stated, “We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth.” And we know the results. Rev. James
We need more men and women like this days for all people to come to the Lord
July 6 2015
Hopefully when you read this that we take a look at ourselves and see all our father in heaven is in willing to communicate with us. So brothers and sisters men and women let us take time to read the Bible pray and ask God to communicate with us and if we do that we can see what the father is like. God bless you Rev. James Portal of heaven ministries.
(I am peace)
I’m reading a book called what is the father like this book represents the father talking one and one with the person reading the book chapter 13 of this book betrays. (I am peace)
My peace will strengthen you and heal your mortal body. For your body becomes my temple, My special sanctuary, when I am present with you. When you become aware of my presence resident within you, you will regard your body as more than merely a physical frame. You will understand it is a royal residence. This is the true honor I bestow on your body. It is no longer yours alone, to do with as you choose. I brought it into being and brought it with my laid-down life. I sustain all of its action by my might. I provide for is health and healing. My child do not abuse or neglect the body we share. The responsible to serve as a proper caretaker of my residence. Keep your body pure, clean, healthy, fit for my occupancy. Never pollute defile, or neglect my royal resident residence. Do not war against your own body. Do I not come to you peace, and purity? Your part is to keep a proper place for you. Your entire being-soul, spirit, body-can be made clean. The impact of my peaceful presence can bring a full re-creation. Throw open all the doors, and let me come in like a mighty rushing wind! Let me drive out all the dust, debris and pollution of your past…Every area in which we have lived in conflict.