When You Need to Know God’s Will but You’re Scared of Making the Wrong Choice

by Anneliese Wahlman  |  November 15, 2018

For my eighteenth birthday, my mom gave me a card that read, “I used to live each day as though it were my last. But people got tired of hearing me scream, ‘I’M GONNA DIE!!! I’M GONNA DIE!!!’ Hope your birthday’s a scream.” Funnily enough, that pretty much described the stress I was just beginning to feel as I reached the big 1-8. I was sad and scared and anxious because I suddenly realized that I wasn’t going to be in high school the next year and I was the one in charge of figuring out what I would be doing instead. And this role…

Freaked. Me. Out.

I didn’t know what God’s will was and I was scared of making a decision. Actually, for years, asking about God’s will made me want to curl up in the fetal position and eat refined sugar. What if I did the wrong thing? How was I supposed to know what the right thing was? How could I move forward when I didn’t see things coming together? What if I was just doing …
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East-Central Africa Division report

by James Rafferty  |  November 2, 2018

Each year Light Bearers Ministry sends containers of literature to developing countries all over the world. Each container holds about 2 million tracts and often includes Bibles and other inspired books like The Great Controversy and The Desire of Ages. The cost for these containers is covered by the large and small donations sent to us for this purpose. You, then, are the reason we are reaching millions of people with the message of the everlasting gospel. You give to God’s cause at Light Bearers and we print and ship the literature and then request a report from the field as to how the literature was used. Containers leave Light Bearers and travel for several weeks and even months to their final destination. Once there, the container is unloaded and stored in a safe location. It is then made available through the local division, union, conference, or supportive ministry for outreach. It may take months, or even a year, to utilize all the material sent. Then we often receive a full report noting how the literature was used to impact …
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The Purifier, Part 4

by Risë Rafferty, RDN  |  October 31, 2018

I was 19, ignorant, and trusting. A woman who lived near the college I was attending convinced me that I needed to go on a “seawater cleanse.” It lasted about 10 days. I don’t remember the particulars of the program, except that I fasted for many of those days and drank “seawater.” This created an internal tsunami that “cleansed” the bowels. Whew! I remember two things after the experience: how delicious steamed broccoli tasted after going without food and how baggy my jeans were.

Since then, I have learned that rather than being a singular event, detoxification is a continuous operation in the body. It is an ongoing process to deal with our continual exposure, incessant internal production, and stored accumulation of toxins. While lemonade fasts, tea-toxing, juice cleanses, and even seawater cleanses exist, these don’t adequately support this valuable, multi-step process. So here are some basic guidelines to support balanced detox.

Reduce Exposure

Minimizing exposure to environmental toxins can lighten the body’s workload, allowing it to focus on house cleaning. Consuming foods least contaminated with pesticides and herbicides and …
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To Be His

by David Asscherick  |  October 29, 2018

“David, I’m so judgmental. I’m just so judgmental of others. I need Jesus. I love Jesus. He can change my heart, because I’m very judgmental of those who are not like me.”

And there were tears that ran down the cheeks into a beautiful smile. Those tears and that smile belonged to Judith. Judith is one of my church members here in Kingscliff. She has four sons who are named Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. I’m not kidding. And these boys are lovely, wonderful, and polite young men. They are a credit to their mom and dad and to their God.

I know I’m probably not supposed to have “favorite” church members, but Judith is one of my favorites. The sincerity, joy, and genuine love that flows from this woman are both an inspiration and a rebuke to me. Judith is a woman who knows Jesus, and it shows.

I had just finished preaching a particularly challenging sermon. I knew that many in the congregation would struggle to hear and apply what I’d said. But I’d said it anyway. I …
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My Battle Standard

by Karl Lindsay  |  October 17, 2018

If you were to walk into my office, one of the first things you would see as you enter is the large flag that hangs on my wall. My flag travels with me when I move to a new place or achieve something significant. I have a photo somewhere of me flying it at the top of Mount Kenya in Africa. Now that I live in Oregon, USA, I proudly hang my Australian flag in my office to be seen every day. It serves as a reminder to me, and to those who visit, that I was born and raised under the Southern Cross, a cross-shaped constellation visible in the Southern Hemisphere’s night skies and prominent on our flag.

At home in Australia, if you were to walk into my parents’ home office, you may notice the Lindsay family crest hanging on a small shield on the left. I have one of those too, in the form of a rubber stamp for the books in my library. I even have a scarf with the pattern of the Lindsay tartan—a unique …
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Enmity in the Air

by Ty Gibson  |  October 5, 2018

One time when I was in the fifth grade a fight broke out during recess. All the kids were gathered around yelling as two boys were punching and kicking one another. What I remember most is feeling nervous and sick to my stomach. That’s what the world looks like right now—a schoolyard fight—but on a much larger and more brutal scale. And that same nervousness and nausea I felt back then sometimes floods my body as I watch the national and international events of each day unfold.

One of the words the Bible uses to describe the fallen human condition is “enmity” (Genesis 3:15; Romans 8:5-7). At its deepest, darkest core, sin is enmity against God and others. Apart from the subduing effect of God’s grace upon our hearts, we humans are in constant internal turmoil that boils over into hostility toward some chosen enemy. There is a deep-seated psychology to our enmity: we suppress and evade our own guilt by blaming, accusing, and hating others (Romans 2:1-4). The practice of diminishing others allows us to maintain an inflated sense …
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The Purifier, Part 3

by Risë Rafferty, RDN  |  October 3, 2018

In 1984, Michael Jordan received the NBA Rookie of the Year Award and an Olympic gold medal. It was a good year. He wore a pair of pinkish Converse tennis shoes at some point that year, supposedly even in the Los Angeles Olympic games. Decades later, when the shoes went up for auction, they were expected to sell for $100,000. Amazingly, someone paid $190,373 for them! We are willing to invest time, effort, and money in that which we think is highly valuable. Obviously, someone found a lot of value in a worn-out pair of pink Converse tennis shoes because of who wore them.

How valuable do you think detoxification is? While you can’t purchase the detox process, it’s extremely valuable and worthy of time and effort to keep it in full function. Detoxification could be considered costly, as it requires significant energy and nutrients. It is complex, as many steps and reactions are essential. Furthermore, as we age it becomes even more valuable to our health.

Last month we began to look at the initial steps and necessary nutrients needed …
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Prone to Forget

by Fred Bischoff  |  October 1, 2018

Peter’s last recorded words (2 Peter 3) highlight the importance of memory and the danger of ignorance.

A person can’t remember something he is ignorant of. But when a culture is “willingly… ignorant” (3:5), its new generations suffer from a corporate amnesia. Peter stirred up the corporate memory of humanity, recalling in history the power of “the word of God” to create and to destroy.

Jesus, the incarnate Word, had pointed Peter to the earlier writings of the Word that predicted the power of Messiah’s unselfish love—the principle of giving, not taking, of humbling, not exalting self (Luke 24:44-48).

Embracing this testimony of Jesus enabled Peter to deny his “own lusts” and leave the rank of “scoffers” (3:3), fully embracing “the promise of His coming” (3:4; see Genesis 3:15; 22:17, 18). He had seen this promise fulfilled in the coming of Messiah and of the Spirit (Acts 1:4; 2:33, 39; compare with Galatians 3:14). Peter had experienced Pentecost!

Drawing more from musty memories, Peter focused on the promise of a future coming—“the day of God” (2 Peter 3:7, 8, 10, …
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What A.A. Taught Me About Church

by Anneliese Wahlman  |  September 14, 2018

Note: some names and minor details in this post have been changed to protect privacy.

Lots of people complain about millennials: we’re shallow, entitled, lazy, we don’t know how to do anything useful. We’re pretty much the equivalent of a generational menstrual cramp for the human race, from which recovery is doubtful. (Cue “The problem with young people these days” speech.) Within the church, people are especially freaking out about the fact that these young people seem to be leaving faster than we can bribe them with a latte.

I’m a millennial and, yeah, I’m lazy. And there are definitely lots of practical things I don’t know how to do. (Sometimes I wonder if this whole adulting thing is gonna work out longterm.) But when it comes to church, I feel like a bit of an outlier. I’ve attended church all my life. I grew up knowing that I should have a relationship with Jesus and bring people into the church. I heard Scripture-based sermons and marked prooftext studies in my Bible that clearly showed the dead weren’t in heaven …
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Three More Keys to a Great Marriage

by Ty Gibson  |  August 31, 2018

Just yesterday a friend in his 30s said, “I went to a wedding last week and was blown away to find out that nearly all of my friends from college are already married and divorced.”

Divorce has become so common, we basically expect it to happen. In my last article, I shared three keys to having a great marriage . I just happen to have three more.

Choose Pleasantness Over Correctness. Being right is overrated. It’s just not necessary to always be right. There is, in fact, a way of being right that is wrong and a way of being wrong that is right. Someone said, “If you’re wrong and you shut up, you’re wise. If you’re right and you shut up, you’re married.” I’d add that shutting up when you’re right is an even higher manifestation of wisdom. “When there are many words, transgression is unavoidable, but he who restrains his lips is wise” (Proverbs 10:19, NASB). Being right in your attitude is more important, by far, than winning an argument.

…love doesn’t cop an attitude of superiority…

Give Space. It’s a law of human nature …
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