Good morning all, May the Grace and Peace of Jesus Christ be with you all. Let us pray,
"In the Name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit....Amen"

Lord Jesus may your blessings and forgiveness come upon us as we pray the Ancient Prayers of Solomon son of David, King of Israel and your servant.

God’s Kindness to Rebellious Israel
A Contemplation of Asaph.

Give ear, O my people, to my law;
Incline your ears to the words of my mouth.
I will open my mouth in a parable;
I will utter dark sayings of old,
Which we have heard and known,
And our fathers have told us.
We will not hide them from their children,
Telling to the generation to come the praises of the Lord,
And His strength and His wonderful works that He has done.
For He established a testimony in Jacob,
And appointed a law in Israel,
Which He commanded our fathers,
That they should make them known to their children;
That the generation to come might know them,
The children who would be born,
That they may arise and declare them to their children,
That they may set their hope in God,
And not forget the works of God,
But keep His commandments;
And may not be like their fathers,
A stubborn and rebellious generation,
A generation that did not set its heart aright,
And whose spirit was not faithful to God.
The children of Ephraim, being armed and carrying bows,
Turned back in the day of battle.
They did not keep the covenant of God;
They refused to walk in His law,
And forgot His works
And His wonders that He had shown them.
Marvelous things He did in the sight of their fathers,
In the land of Egypt, in the field of Zoan.
He divided the sea and caused them to pass through;
And He made the waters stand up like a heap.
In the daytime also He led them with the cloud,
And all the night with a light of fire.
He split the rocks in the wilderness,
And gave them drink in abundance like the depths.
He also brought streams out of the rock,
And caused waters to run down like rivers.
But they sinned even more against Him
By rebelling against the Most High in the wilderness.
And they tested God in their heart
By asking for the food of their fancy.
Yes, they spoke against God:
They said, “Can God prepare a table in the wilderness?
Behold, He struck the rock,
So that the waters gushed out,
And the streams overflowed.
Can He give bread also?
Can He provide meat for His people?”
Therefore the Lord heard this and was furious;
So a fire was kindled against Jacob,
And anger also came up against Israel,
Because they did not believe in God,
And did not trust in His salvation.
Yet He had commanded the clouds above,
And opened the doors of heaven,
Had rained down manna on them to eat,
And given them of the bread of heaven.
Men ate angels’ food;
He sent them food to the full.
He caused an east wind to blow in the heavens;
And by His power He brought in the south wind.
He also rained meat on them like the dust,
Feathered fowl like the sand of the seas;
And He let them fall in the midst of their camp,
All around their dwellings.
So they ate and were well filled,
For He gave them their own desire.
They were not deprived of their craving;
But while their food was still in their mouths,
The wrath of God came against them,
And slew the stoutest of them,
And struck down the choice men of Israel.
In spite of this they still sinned,
And did not believe in His wondrous works.
Therefore their days He consumed in futility,
And their years in fear.
When He slew them, then they sought Him;
And they returned and sought earnestly for God.
Then they remembered that God was their rock,
And the Most High God their Redeemer.
Nevertheless they flattered Him with their mouth,
And they lied to Him with their tongue;
For their heart was not steadfast with Him,
Nor were they faithful in His covenant.
But He, being full of compassion, forgave their iniquity,
And did not destroy them.
Yes, many a time He turned His anger away,
And did not stir up all His wrath;
For He remembered that they were but flesh,
A breath that passes away and does not come again.
How often they provoked Him in the wilderness,
And grieved Him in the desert!
Yes, again and again they tempted God,
And limited the Holy One of Israel.
They did not remember His power:
The day when He redeemed them from the enemy,
When He worked His signs in Egypt,
And His wonders in the field of Zoan;
Turned their rivers into blood,
And their streams, that they could not drink.
He sent swarms of flies among them, which devoured them,
And frogs, which destroyed them.
He also gave their crops to the caterpillar,
And their labor to the locust.
He destroyed their vines with hail,
And their sycamore trees with frost.
He also gave up their cattle to the hail,
And their flocks to fiery lightning.
He cast on them the fierceness of His anger,
Wrath, indignation, and trouble,
By sending angels of destruction among them.
He made a path for His anger;
He did not spare their soul from death,
But gave their life over to the plague,
And destroyed all the firstborn in Egypt,
The first of their strength in the tents of Ham.
But He made His own people go forth like sheep,
And guided them in the wilderness like a flock;
And He led them on safely, so that they did not fear;
But the sea overwhelmed their enemies.
And He brought them to His holy border,
This mountain which His right hand had acquired.
He also drove out the nations before them,
Allotted them an inheritance by survey,
And made the tribes of Israel dwell in their tents.
Yet they tested and provoked the Most High God,
And did not keep His testimonies,
But turned back and acted unfaithfully like their fathers;
They were turned aside like a deceitful bow.
For they provoked Him to anger with their high places,
And moved Him to jealousy with their carved images.
When God heard this, He was furious,
And greatly abhorred Israel,
So that He forsook the tabernacle of Shiloh,
The tent He had placed among men,
And delivered His strength into captivity,
And His glory into the enemy’s hand.
He also gave His people over to the sword,
And was furious with His inheritance.
The fire consumed their young men,
And their maidens were not given in marriage.
Their priests fell by the sword,
And their widows made no lamentation.
Then the Lord awoke as from sleep,
Like a mighty man who shouts because of wine.
And He beat back His enemies;
He put them to a perpetual reproach.
Moreover He rejected the tent of Joseph,
And did not choose the tribe of Ephraim,
But chose the tribe of Judah,
Mount Zion which He loved.
And He built His sanctuary like the heights,
Like the earth which He has established forever.
He also chose David His servant,
And took him from the sheepfolds;
From following the ewes that had young He brought him,
To shepherd Jacob His people,
And Israel His inheritance.
So he shepherded them according to the integrity of his heart,
And guided them by the sk**lfulness of his hands.
Psalm 78:1-72

And the Psalm says it all! So in his words, we ask this in the name of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit....Amen"

It has taken me awhile to
(A) get back on opp and
(B) find this 3rd edition of the prayer team site.
I was getting a locked message on page 111 on the prayer team website on the second edition. And now I find we have this many new pages on the third edition? Congratulations on praying so much team members. I need to thank all of you for your prayers offered on behalf of me and John. The stay this time was much shorter,and the diagnosis was a severe kidney infection that is a result of all the pills that John has to take because of his health. Your prayers were felt by both of us. The IV's were much more easily administered as was the time in the hospital shortened.
Your prayers were felt by us both. Thank you again,we feel so honored to have friends that intercede on our behalf.
God Bless each and everyone of you is our prayers. Cant beleve, (Curtis) and John.
P.S. thanks to all who sent us P.M's also.

Once upon a time, the liberal position was to reject the old discriminatory branding of people by the color of their skins rather than by the content of their characters.

Not now. Political and career advantage is found in trumpeting -- or occasionally making up -- genealogies.

Take the inexact category of Latino or Hispanic -- an often constructed identity that increasingly no one quite knows how to define. Almost anyone can be a Latino or Hispanic, from a fourth-generation American with one-quarter Mexican ancestry, to a first-generation Cuban, to a youth who recently arrived illegally from Central America, to someone whose great-grandparents emigrated from the Portuguese Azores.

What ties them together? Not necessarily appearance, their names, knowledge of Spanish or proximity of their ancestral homelands.

New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez is Latina -- her parents were Mexican-American. But her now-desperate Democratic challenger for the governorship, Gary King, claims that Martinez "does not have a Latino heart." Apparently for King, a self-appointed genealogist, if you do not share his liberal agenda, then you are, de facto, not Latino.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid made a similar statement in 2010, when he defined ancestry by political ideology: "I don't know how anyone of Hispanic heritage could be a Republican, OK?"

Last year, former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a liberal who is of mixed Mexican and Spanish ancestry, claimed that Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, a conservative who is half-Cuban, should not "be defined as a Hispanic" because Cruz opposes comprehensive immigration reform.

But imagine if Richardson were conservative, had taken his mother's name and went by Bill Marquez, and if Cruz were liberal, also took his mother's name and went by Ted Wilson. Who would be the more authentic Hispanic/Latino?

The New York Times made up an absurd category for George Zimmerman, classifying him as a "white Hispanic" when it wished to gin up the Zimmerman-Trayvon Martin controversy along racial fault lines. But had Zimmerman taken his mother's last name, Mesa, or Latinized his first name to become Jorge Zimmerman, then the New York Times might have had more trouble pulling off its racial gymnastics.

After all, Zimmerman is as Hispanic as Barack Obama is African-American. But the Times would not dare dub the president, who had a white mother and African father, a "white African-American." In short, not only are racial bumper stickers sometimes cynical, but they are also hopelessly inexact.

In an ever more racially diverse society where intermarriage is routine and assimilation often rapid, we have no discernible rules for what determines one's race.

Is ethnic heritage certified by native language fluency? If so, former San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro, the new secretary of Housing and Urban Development and a rising star in the Democratic Party, wouldn't qualify because he cannot speak fluent Spanish.

We still live under antiquated, 50-year-old ideas that grant some ethnic groups privileges over others. Because these racial rubrics can be advantageous for things like college admissions and employment, and because the idea of racial purity is becoming ever more problematic, fantasy becomes inevitable.

That is why the charlatan Ward Churchill, a noted activist, tried -- and succeeded in -- fabricating a Native American identity to land a job at the University of Colorado. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren invented a Native American pedigree and so became Harvard Law School's first recognized Native American professor. When other elites hyphenate their last names and accentuate first names, they remind us that without such IDs, one might not otherwise learn -- or care about -- their particular racial pedigree.

But even if some can prove ethnically pure heritages, who gets an edge in racially mixed-up America and who does not -- and why?

Will the tens of thousands of Central American children who recently crossed illegally into America soon be eligible for affirmative action? If so, on what grounds? That America welcomed, fed, clothed and schooled those who were all but driven out from their oppressive Central American governments?

Will these newcomers soon be eligible for special consideration in a way that Syrian refugees who are scheduled to arrive legally to the United States will not?

In t***h, the criterion for affirmative action is not superficial appearance. (Syrians are perhaps as much non-white in appearance as Central Americans.) It is not past discrimination. (Central American dictators have been as unkind as Syrian dictators.) Nor is it present prejudice. (Both groups are new to the United States and not past victims of American discrimination.)

Why continue with d******e racial self-identification?

Too many of our ethnic aristocrats and politicians benefit from a fossilized system of a past century that is now largely irrelevant in 21st-century America.

Victor Davis Hanson

Have you ever studied "two spirit" or berdaches? I may or may not comment further on this whole subject matter at some point in time. I do believe you are mixing apples and oranges. What cultural items you mention in societies past really have nothing to do with sexual attraction. In all the consternation of attempting to categorize everyone the way the most common interpretations of the Bible wants, and all the tangents that are taken, the obvious is disregarded. I personally am 100% convinced that I was born gay. The vast majority of gay people I have ever met think the same way. I spent the first 40 years of my life denying what and who I was. Would it not just be easier to accept the t***h from the people who really know?