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Criticism

Rap Artist M.I.A. Responds To Critics Of Her Faith In Jesus Christ: They Would ‘Rather Me Be A Bad Girl’

by Rhoda Gayle January 3, 2023

Rap artist and singer M.I.A. responded to the critics of her Christian faith.

Rap artist M.I.A.

Mathangi “Maya” Arulpragasam, popularly known as M.I.A. took to Twitter to respond to the criticism she received following the public profession of her faith. In her tweet, she said that these people prefer her to be on the bad side, rather than her talking about Jesus Christ.

“The fact that the biggest backlash in my career and life I’m facing after saying ‘Jesus is real’ is such a revelation to me,” she said. “People who control these apps rather me be a bad girl, than a good one.”

Photo Courtesy: NPR

Criticism

It all started when she talked about her newfound faith during an interview to promote her release of a new album “Mata” in October. The record was influenced by her upbringing and Christian faith. M.I.A. has always been open about her Christianity.

In an interview in 2016, the 47-year-old artist shared her testimony of how her belief changed after having an encounter with Jesus Christ.

“Since then, my head has been in a totally different place. Being a Tamil and a Hindu, I was very comfortable that I’d arrived finding myself. Which is, I think, going to be weird for America to process,” she said. “But I had a vision and I saw the vision of Jesus Christ.”

That vision changed her viewpoints about life and her beliefs.

“In my time of need, the God that turned up to save me was not Shiva. It was Jesus,” she said in an interview two months ago. “That is the truth, and I have to say that. The only clear thing I can say is that even when I had no belief in Jesus Christ and Christianity, and even when I was 100% comfortable in Hinduism, it was a Christian God that turned up to save me.”

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Reference: The Christian Post

January 3, 2023 0 comment

Faith

Dealing With Criticism

by Betty King December 16, 2021

written by Betty King

We really need to talk about how to deal with criticism. Many people don’t take criticism well because they truly don’t know how to look at it in the right way. But when you have the right understanding, you will use it as fuel for your growth and never allow it to drain your strength again! Today I’ll give you some of the keys that you need to handle the various criticisms that come your way.

One of the keys you’ll need in dealing with criticism is to recognise and be THANKFUL that someone sees your value enough to want to inform you, in their own way, as to how they see you. If you didn’t have value, you really wouldn’t attract the attention. It doesn’t matter what is said or how it’s done. If you can take it well, criticism will actually get you to recognise and realise your value. Sometimes criticism comes so that you can see that what you do and how you do it means something to someone. The Scriptures say that we enter His gates with thanksgiving, so bring it all, with thanks, into His presence. He will show you the meaning and purpose of it all and why it has come at this time and how it fits in with what He wants you to see. Respond in the Spirit and not in the flesh.

Another key is to recognise that sometimes God is using your life to tell someone a story that they need to hear in order to WAKE UP. When people are nit-picking and criticising you, they are also watching you. You’re living out your dreams, moving forward in life, and God’s story is unfolding for you while they only sit and observe and comment. One day they will eventually realise they have been living off crumbs that fell from the table that the Lord was preparing for you right in front of their eyes. They were feeding on the goodness of God in YOUR life, forgetting that they too need a table of their own to eat from. Your life will be a witness of God’s goodness and glory to them, and what it looks like to journey well with God, even if at first they were looking only for the wrong reasons.

And finally, sometimes you just need to hear what your enemy is saying. If it were not important, then God would not have told Gideon in Judges 7:10-11 to go down into the camp and hear what the Midianites and Amalekites were saying. After Gideon heard their words, he worshipped God! From his enemy’s own mouth, he understood their weaknesses and discerned how God was about to move. His enemy had recognised his value and yet was still choosing to attack. And God turned the whole thing around, exposing the truth.

Sometimes people may attack you, but the reality is that they are just intimidated by your growth, and the only way for them to feel good about themselves is to come against you anyway. So just worship and advance! Listen carefully to what you hear so that you can discern the true nature of the battle and pray effectively. God sent Gideon down with one other person, so identify who God has put with you for this season and move forward. Just as God spoke to the Midianites and Amalekites after they had gathered against Gideon, so will God speak in due time to those who criticise and oppose those who live for Him today. For now, be thankful for the affirmation that comes through criticisms and for the strategies that come along with them. In ALL things be thankful, and SURGE ahead.

HALLELUJAH!

Adored

Rev Betty King

____

Is ‘Trance Evangelism’ Coming Back In Vogue?

by Jennifer LeClaire May 20, 2020

written by Jennifer LeClaire

maria-woodworth-etter-web

Although I’ve never fallen into a trance, I know people who have—and it’s totally biblical. There is enough evidence from the Word of God and from modern expressions to back up this scriptural supernatural experience.

A trance is a state of one who is “out of himself,” according to Easton’s Bible Dictionary. The word trance comes from the Greek word “ekstasis,” from which the word ecstasy is derived. Peter fell into a trance in Acts 10:10 that opened his eyes to preach the gospel to the Gentiles. Paul fell into a trance in Acts 22:17 in which the Lord gave Him a warning and a commission to preach the gospel to the Gentiles. Smith’s Bible Dictionary goes a little deeper, saying a trance is:

“The state in which a man has passed out of the usual order of his life, beyond the usual limits of consciousness and volition, being rapt in causes of this state are to be traced commonly to strong religious impressions. Whatever explanation may be given of it, it is true of many, if not of most, of those who have left the stamp of their own character on the religious history of mankind, that they have been liable to pass at times into this abnormal state.”

Trance Evangelism?

I thought it fitting to offer a look at Maria Woodworth-Etter, a powerful voice from the late 1800s and early 1900s. She was moving in the supernatural before Asuza Street or the charismatic movement made its mark on church history.

Indeed, Woodworth-Etter was a Pentecostal forerunner. She saw great outpourings of God’s Spirit in the Midwest before entering the West Coast to win souls for God. In Oakland, California, she bought an 8,000-seat tent in 1889. It was packed with people hungry to watch God move. He didn’t disappoint. Healings, signs, wonders, miracles were commonplace in Woodworth-Etter’s meetings.

Miracles always draw crowds and critics. It was no different for this female pioneer. She didn’t see the attacks from fellow healing evangelist John Alexander Dowie coming. At first, Dowie, himself moving in miracles, praised Woodworth-Etter. However, he soon accused her of propagating a great delusion, because people fell into trances left and right under her tent. He called it “trance evangelism.”

Woodworth-Etter also drew attention from the media. The Salem report documents her falling into a trance on March 24, 1904, and she “had to be laid on the platform for over an hour.” In 1913, The Boston Globe reported, “Took No Money for Healing; Mrs. Etter Gave God Credit for Cures.” Those are just a few of the articles written about this pre-Pentecostal minister.

Standing Like Statues

There are accounts of Woodworth-Etter falling into a trance at a St. Louis meeting and standing like a statue for three whole days. Attendees of the World Fair looked on in amazement. She fell into trances that left her frozen for hours at a time. This happened to many who attended her meetings.

“People fell into trances, experienced visions of heaven and hell, collapsed on the floor as if they’d been shot or had died,” reports Revival Library. “Thousands were healed of a wide variety of sicknesses and diseases and many believers, even ministers, received mighty baptisms of the Holy Spirit.”

Unbelievers Encountered God’s Presence

Often, unbelievers who came in to disrupt the service were encountered by the power of God and fell into a trance. Reporters ridiculed her, her husband lashed out at her in a public letter, and she lost the support of well-known ministers in her day. Through all this she continued preaching and people continued getting saved—and falling into trances. Woodworth-Etter pointed people to scriptural references of trances and believed it was the power of God.

She goes down in Pentecostal history as a pioneer/forerunner who withstood strong persecution to steward the glory of God. We need more like Woodworth-Etter in this hour.

In the Weekly Evangel, Robert J. Craig, an early Pentecostal leader and pastor of Glad Tidings Temple in San Francisco, honored her and encouraged ministers to study her life and ministry: “If the Pentecostal ministry would study her life and count on God, expecting the supernatural to be revealed in each meeting, what a mighty agency ours would be in the hands of God.”

Amen. What would happen if skeptics entered a Holy Ghost meeting, fell into a trance and saw visions of hell? Maybe trance evangelism isn’t such a bad idea.

May 20, 2020 0 comment

Faith

How Actress Melissa Hart Went From ‘Teenage Witch’ To Spiritual Warfare For Jesus

by GOD TV January 16, 2019

written by GOD TV

Being a Hollywood star can bring a lot of criticism into your life, especially when you are boldly open about your faith. The media will do whatever they can to bring attention to your name. They put up headlines for the sake of big news and couldn’t care less about the truth. That’s why it’s no surprise that most Christian celebrities receive backlash from people. Recently, the American actress Melissa Joan Hart experienced the same criticism.

Apparently, in an interview with Paula Faris on the ABC network’s “Journeys of Faith” podcast, Melissa opened up about her journey with God. She talked about her faith and how she was led to Jesus Christ and grew a closer relationship with Him. For this reason, she received a lot of judgment from others.

As Christians it is so exciting to watch others come to Christ.

For Melissa, it is special because she has an enormous platform for spreading God’s word. However, for unbelievers, it’s undesirable and misunderstood. No wonder haters blasted her on social media, calling her names, and cursing her for what she had said about Jesus being the way to Heaven. Most of the comments from her critics aren’t fit to reprint. She was also accused of being anti-semitic because she believes what Christians believe.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BsIxvkxhiD3/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet

In the interview, Melissa revealed that growing up, she was Catholic while her husband was raised Baptist. Over time, as a married couple, they searched for unity in their pursuit of faith in Christ, and they found a church where they could grow together. Since then, both Melissa and her husband have attended Bible studies in Connecticut and decided to put her kids in Christian preschool.

She mentioned how she loved being around Christians; praying and growing together through studying Scripture.

Just like any other Christian, she’s also struggled with doubt, but, she said, “Then I close my eyes and tap into the Holy Spirit and let Him speak to me. And you feel that warmth and you feel that change.”

Melissa never discoursed about her prior acting role as a teenage witch, however, she revealed how she engages in what the Bible calls spiritual warfare whenever she senses fear and darkness. She shared how she could powerfully cast that fear and darkness out by speaking in faith out loud.

“When I’m in my house and I’m afraid if I’m by myself or my husband’s asleep before me, and I get afraid and I’m walking the halls and you just get that creepy feeling like goosebumps up your back like something’s not right, I just say out loud, you know, ‘This is a Jesus home, Satan’s not welcome here, get out, this is a home for Jesus,'” Melissa said.

“Immediately… you feel that darkness go away,” she added.

“One of the great things that I’ve learned is that darkness is just the absence of light and without Jesus you just have this darkness and then Jesus is the light… so not having Jesus in your life just leaves this void,” she further explained.

Melissa’s full interview with Paula Faris “Journeys of Faith” can be heard by clicking below.

Source: CBN News

This article was written by Christel Berns Villariza.

January 16, 2019 0 comment

Articles

Writing God’s Way

by GOD TV January 3, 2019

written by GOD TV

Writing God’s Way

So what does writing God’s way mean? Many writers whether Christian or secular, allow the very thought of criticism or discouragement to prevent them from putting pen to paper. It’s a part of writing and putting your work out there. A dilemma that all writers face. In fact, it is probably one of the most common fears all artists face.

When you first contemplate becoming a Christian writer, there seems to be an additional pressure, doesn’t there? However, one thing is for sure, if you are writing to ‘please’ others, you may forget about even starting!

Always remember – reaching others is very different to pleasing others.

If you read the prophetic passages, you will notice that the prophets of old, did not always bring ‘good news’ to Israel. In fact, there was a lot of ‘doom and gloom’. That’s because God had something to say about how people were treating Him and treating each other – there was little or no respect. He used scribes and prophets to get His message across and sometimes they were frowned upon and not very popular. That is until their prophecies came true! Then the people began to listen and their sacred writings were preserved and published century after century.

Dealing with criticism

If it makes anyone feel any better, I have constantly suffered criticism regarding what I write. At first it was…ouch, that hurt! However, I soon learned that it was to be expected. It didn’t matter after a while because I knew that God had something to say about it and I felt called to write – for Him.

It is always a good thing when writing either Christian non-fiction or fiction to try and be in alignment with what God’s Word says. Always try to write not only with His purpose in mind but with His infallible Word. If what you write is not, then you will have a problem. It will be something that you will wrestle with for a long time. Remember, once something is written and published – publicly, it’s hard to take it back.

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

Tips

One of the major questions I am asked is, how do I deal with criticism. Constructive criticism is great, in fact it is essential if one is going to grow as a writer. However, if publishing a book, blog, magazine or article, it is important to distinguish between what is authentic criticism and what is not. This will keep you sane. Also, beware of the ‘politically correct’ correctors!

Dr Ken Baker on his feature ‘How did Jesus handle criticism?’ wrote,

“Don’t let compliments get to your head and don’t let their criticism get to your heart.”

A good balance. I believe one of the most important things after writing with God’s purpose is, does what the person write make sense? And above all does it have the desired effect upon the reader? If it is ‘yes’ to these questions, then keep writing because God is using you – effectively.

And Finally…

As human beings we do not like to be challenged or our views questioned. People are happy in their comfort zones, with a constant ‘do not disturb’ sign on the doors of their minds. However, it is important that we are stretched, spiritually whether we are believers or not and this is the job of the scribe. Reaching others, is our true calling. It is Jesus’ command and Great Commission to us.

Today I received a gift in the post from GOD TV. It read:

“I’M A MEDIA MISSIONARY: Bringing the Gospel to the Nations.”

If you can do this through your writing, the criticism just falls to the ground as dust. This phrase in a nutshell, is what it is all about.

Why not make the New Year, the year you write your book, blog, poem or article with your God-driven purpose in mind!

If you feel God has called you to be a writer, consider becoming a contributor to GODTV.com!

CLICK HERE for more information.

January 3, 2019 0 comment