After sending out an article, in Morning Manna, Sunday morning regarding being distracted by the devil, I preached a message that evening called “Battle Ready”. Then a strange thing happened. Each morning I read a dozen or so daily devotions in search of something to use for Morning Manna. On this particular day almost every one centered on the same subject–spiritual warfare. I was shocked. I began to wonder if this was Defeat The Devil Day, or something along that order. It’s highly unusal that 9 out of 10 articles would all deal with the same subject. I would expect that at Christmas or Easter, etc., but not today. I know, you can chalk it up to “just one of those things”, but it impacted me more than that! It reminded me that we need to be reminded that we are indeed at war. I realize that this isn’t the exciting fun-loving stuff that people enjoy reading, but they need to hear it.

The Christian lifestyle puts you at odds with the world and, as Paul said, “all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.”(2 Timothy 3:12). Jesus taught the same thing. He never invited people to follow Him under false pretense. He was always open and honest. He let it be known that His followers would be hated for His name’s sake.(John 15:18-21). It’s unnatural for God’s people to be popular. Live for Christ and you will be hated.

I believe the most common cause of defeat is being ill-prepared for Satan’s attacks. Don’t let it happen to you. Whatever your plans are for today, just remember–Satan plans to attack! Be ready. It’s not “Murphy’s Law” that gets us into trouble, its Satan’s devices. Be prepared and you will be victorious. Think about it!

As a grandparent of 34 I couldn’t resist posting this—- The more I read this – the funnier it got!!! 
RETARDED GRANDPARENTS – (this was actually reported by a teacher) After
Christmas, a teacher asked her young pupils how they spent their 
holiday away from school. One child wrote the following:
We always used to spend the holidays with Grandma and Grandpa. They 
used to live in a big brick house but Grandpa got retarded and they 
moved to Florida …Now they live in a tin box and have rocks painted 
green to look like grass.
They ride around on their bicycles and wear name tags because they 
don’t know who they are anymore. They go to a building called a wreck 
center, but they must have got it fixed because it is all okay now, 
they do exercises there, but they don’t do them very well. There is a 
swimming pool too, but all they do is jump up and down in it…with 
hats on.
At their gate, there is a doll house with a little old man sitting in 
it. He watches all day so nobody can escape. Sometimes they sneak out, 
and go cruising in their golf carts.
Nobody there cooks, they just eat out. And, they eat the same thing 
every night — early birds. Some of the people can’t get out past the 
man in the doll house. The ones who do get out, bring food back to the 
wrecked center for pot luck.
My Grandma says that Grandpa worked all his life to earn his retardment 
and says I should work hard so I can be retarded someday too. When I 
earn my retardment, I want to be the man in the doll house. Then I will 
let people out, so they can visit their grandchildren. …PRICELESS

NOTICE:

I have received several reports that people aren’t receiving “Morning Manna” by email. I put a notice on the Pastor’s Blog, but I realize that many folks never read it, so I have decided to post it here. Hopefully this will get more attention.

I have not missed a day in sending the Morning Manna to all those on in my address book, so if you haven’t received it there is a problem somewhere. Knowing what to do is difficult because I have no way of knowing who is receiving it and who isn’t. I hate to have everyone send an email, and being swamped with emails that I don’t have time to answer, but that’s all I know to do. So if you have or haven’t been receiving it please contact be at [email protected]. If anyone is a computer whiz and knows what the problem might be please let me know. If I can’t get the problem resolved soon I will simply discontinue the Morning Manna. Thanks!

It has been called to my attention that some folks haven’t been receiving “Morning Manna”, our daily devotion, by email. Unless a person calls I have no way of knowing whether it is being received or not. Even then, I don’t always know what to do to fix the problem. Most of the time it is due to the person’s computer seeing it as spam. So, if you haven’t been getting it lately check your spam folder. I am writing this with the hopes that those who aren’t receiving it will read this article and realize that I have been sending it every day. If you haven’t been getting it please call me or send me an email or card. Hopefully we can get the problem resolved soon. Until then you can always read it here on the website. Thanks for all the kind words and letters of encouragement regarding Morning Manna. It’s my prayer that it will be a blessing. Yours In Christ, Bro. Stone

As I checked the news this morning, on a Christian web-site, I noticed that another church building in east Texas was burned yesterday. This makes eleven churches in the state that have gone up in flames since New Year’s Day. Most have been Baptist churches. Clearly, someone hates churches!

Then, on the same web page I noticed another article headline that said–“Two Street Preachers Gunned Down in Florida Two Weeks Ago—Media Still Silent”. I took the time to read the entire sad story and was amazed that no national news organization has reported the vicious murder of these two young innocent preachers. I agree with what one man said,”If two Muslims, or two feminists, or two homosexuals were murdered, wouldn’t the media be all over it? These were two fine young black Christian men shot by another black man for their Christian faith, yet the media does not seem to care.”

Well, I decided that was enough bad news for one day, so I clicked to another site and, you guessed it, more bad news! Just yesterday a gunman opened fire in a California church, wounding two teenagers. The gunman and two other men, wearing hooded sweatshirts, walked up and down the aisles, when he starts shooting, wounding a 14-year-old boy and a 19-year-old man.

As a Christian I expect to be hated by the world–Jesus said it would happen, but it is amazing that so few people seem to care. It would be easy to get bitter, but that’s exactly what satan would want. Instead, we need to pray for perpetrators of these crimes and the victims. Every student of the Bible knows that things are going to get much worse. We need to prepare ourselves for it. But it would sure be nice if the liberal media at least acted as though they were concerned. The truth is that the whole scam regarding the “Hate crimes” law is nothing more that an effort to silence Christians and promote evil.THINK ABOUT IT!