Don Costello's blog

Who is wiping out Christianity from the Middle East, Israel or Islam?
I think the truth needs to be told about this persecution. It is Islam that is fueling the hatred, not Judaism or Christianity. I believe this article is very enlightening.
Don

A Creche Without Christians
Christian Persecution in the Middle East.

By Nina Shea

In the two millennia since the child’s birth in a humble manger in Bethlehem, the good news of Christianity has spread to every continent, inspiring more followers than any other religion today. But the lands that once were the cradle of Christianity have turned distinctively inhospitable to the faith. Fiercely intolerant variants of Islam are taking hold in the region, many of them fueled with ideology and funds from Saudi and Iranian extremists.

From Morocco to the Persian Gulf, we are seeing the rapid erosion of Christian populations, thought to now number no more than 15 million. These are the communities that have disproportionately been the region’s modernizers, the mediators bridging east and west, its educators and academics, as the Lebanese Catholic scholar Habib Malik observes. For empirical evidence he has to look no further than his own father, a principal drafter of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The Born-again Believer and the
Word of God

One of the foundational basics in Covenant relationship with Christ is our attitude toward God’s word. It must be a vital part in that relationship. In a vibrant healthy relationship with God we must consider His view of things in our life as most important. We need to develop our opinion of topics and subjects by finding out what the Bible says about them. It is the same with sin, we study to find out what God’s word says about it and we believe it. If our opinion is different from what the Bible says, we need make a quality decision to reject any natural opinion and accept God’s word as the final authority about that issue in life. We are to do that because Jesus is our life, our Master, and we are in Covenant relationship with Him. Whatever He says is right. This process may sound to some like brainwashing, and in one sense they are correct; it is brainwashing. As Christians we need to have our brains cleansed from the way the natural man thinks. Scripturally, it is a process called “renewing” the mind, in Romans 12:2.

“And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind…”

The bottom line is God doesn’t think like us and we, as natural human beings, don’t think like Him. Isaiah 55:8, 9 reveals that quite clearly.

The Lying Vanity of Sexual Orientation

Israel and their right to the Land

Genesis 15:7-21

And he said unto him, I am the LORD that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it.
And he said, Lord GOD, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it?
And he said unto him, Take me an heifer of three years old, and a she goat of three years old, and a ram of three years old, and a turtledove, and a young pigeon.
And he took him all these, and divided them in the midst, and laid each piece one against another: but the birds divided he not.
And when the fowls came down upon the carcases, Abram drove them away.
And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and, lo, an horror of great darkness fell upon him.
And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years;
And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance.
And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good old age.
But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.
And it came to pass, that, when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp that passed between those pieces.

Babies Are Babies

God’s word does not differentiate between babies in the womb and babies outside the womb. Babies are babies and children are children before and after birth. This is perhaps the most important component of the argument.

What is Man?

We Are Wonderfully Made

Another powerful truth revealed in Scripture is that it is God that forms the baby in the womb of the mother. Nowhere else is that so beautifully described as in Psalm 139:13-18

“For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvelous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well. My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them. How precious also are thy thoughts unto me O God! How great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand:”

EXCEPTIONS?
Rape and Incest

All the restrictions on abortion which I traditionally supported that have come down from the Federal and State levels had the exceptions of rape, incest and the life of the mother. I supported them and did not give much thought to the exceptions. Within the last couple of years I have begun to rethink my views and face the “hard cases”. My wife Melissa was already against the exceptions and we would discuss them occasionally, but I was clueless and felt I had no foundation to speak about rape or incest. I was wrong; the Word of God is the foundation even in the hard cases. Then I discovered there are people who were conceived in rape and/or incest and they are not only very pro-life, but are against the rape and incest exceptions in abortion restrictions.

The Church And Abortion

I think it is safe to say that a large percentage of the Body of Christ is indifferent to abortion. Some may be against it but on the list of important issues it is too far down the list to affect matters such as where to worship, or for whom to vote for, but the truth is that because we are followers of Christ we cannot be indifferent to abortion. Recently I learned that three Democratic candidates for President have hired “religious advisors” to help them capture the votes of evangelical Christians. Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, and Barack Obama have all hired these so called evangelical political strategists, to instruct the candidate they work for in the wisdom to persuade Christians to vote for them. As a Christian who has studied and written a small amount about abortion and politics, I find this to be offensive. The reason is because in the last six or seven years I have come to find out that a born again Christian in fellowship with God, cannot be pro-choice/pro-abortion, its impossible.