In This Issue• Today's Daily Brief
• The Middle East In Focus
• The Good News Corner
• Worship With Us!
Greetings!
Capitol Hill Prayer Partners
P.O. Box 5152
Herndon, VA 20172-1970
chpp@patriot.net
The Daily Brief - Tuesday, March 23, 2010
"I know that my Redeemer lives." (Job 19:25)
Today's Daily Brief
1. Tea Partiers to Congressional Democrats: You'll Pay in November - Fox News
It's payback time. Tea Party leaders, livid over the passage of health care reform on Sunday night, say their next step will be to turn from fighting the bill to running the people who voted for it out of Congress. Though health care reform may continue to be the overriding issue for Tea Party groups in the months to come, the activists say they're ready to divide their attention among whatever issues Obama chooses to pursue - immigration reform or cap-and-trade or something else.
• Heavenly Father, we pray for the Tea Party movement to be free of polarizing leaders. We pray for the purity of the intentions of leadership and that it will be used to bring righteousness back to all the political parties.
• Commit your way to the Lord, Trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass. He shall bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday. (Psalm 37:5, 6)
2. New Health-Care Taxes Help Obama 'Spread the Wealth' - Bloomberg
President Barack Obama said on the campaign trail in October 2008 that he wanted to "spread the wealth around." With Obama on the verge of signing sweeping health-care overhaul legislation, he's about to do just that. In all, the bill would generate $409.2 billion in additional taxes by 2019, according to an analysis by the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation, a nonpartisan agency. The bill also imposes about $69 billion more in penalties for individuals and businesses who don't meet mandates to buy insurance, according to the Congressional Budget Office, another nonpartisan agency.
• Lord, this huge change to our economic system has to be reversed. We pray for strong leadership and courts that will declare this healthcare bill to be unconstitutional and that it will never be enacted!
• So shall they fear the Name of the Lord from the west, and His glory from the rising of the sun; When the enemy comes in like a flood, The Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him. (Isaiah 59:19)
3. Lesbian Gets Day in Court Over Nixed Prom - USA Today
Constance McMillen, the Mississippi gay teen who challenged her school district's ban on same-sex prom dates, asked a federal judge on Monday to reinstate the prom the school board called off. The Itawamba County school board canceled the April 2 prom after the American Civil Liberties Union demanded that McMillen be allowed to attend the dance with her girlfriend and be allowed to wear a tuxedo. The ACLU suit seeks a reversal of that decision and a ruling that McMillen's right to free expression was violated. McMillen would be satisfied if the board's actions were ruled unconstitutional.
• Lord, we pray that this attack on our Christian values and Your laws will be turned to nothing. Let the God-haters not succeed in their constant attacks to get laws enacted that would further their agenda.
• The wicked plots against the just, and gnashes at him with his teeth. The Lord laughs at him, for He sees that his day is coming. (Psalm 37:12, 13)
4. ACORN Disbanding Because of Money Woes, Scandal - AP
The once mighty community activist group ACORN announced Monday it is folding amid falling revenues - six months after video footage emerged showing some of its workers giving tax tips to conservative activists posing as a pimp and prostitute. Several of its largest affiliates, including ACORN New York and ACORN California, broke away this year and changed their names in a bid to ditch the tarnished image of their parent organization and restore revenue that ran dry in the wake of the video scandal.
• Father God, we know You hate lies and crooked ways. We pray that these organizations that are scheming to get money dishonestly will be exposed and will not continue to exist. Turn our nation back to holiness.
• The way of peace they have not known, and there is no justice in their ways; they have made themselves crooked paths; Whoever takes that way shall not know peace. (Isaiah 59:8)
5. Va., Other States Challenge Health Care - Washington Times
Virginia invoked a law Monday to challenge the constitutionality of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul, as roughly 10 other states prepare for similar legislation. Other states planning to challenge the bill were Alabama, Idaho, Florida, South Carolina, Texas, Nebraska, North and South Dakota, Pennsylvania, Utah and Washington. Roughly 34 other state assemblies are considering similar legislation.
Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning said the measure "tramples on individual liberty and dumps on the states the burden of an unfunded mandate that taxpayers cannot afford."
• Thank you, Lord, for giving us strong, godly leadership to speak out and act boldly against this abuse of power by our elected officials. Let them be successful. Give us righteous judges who will give us godly judgments.
• The God of Israel said, The Rock of Israel spoke to me: 'He who rules over men must be just, Ruling in the fear of God. (2 Samuel 23:3)
6. Obama to Sign Health Bill, Take it on the Road - Washington Times
President Obama is preparing to sign a transformative health care bill ushering in near-universal medical coverage for the first time in the nation's history - and then hit the road to sell it to a reluctant public. "This is what change looks like," Obama said later in televised remarks that stirred memories of his 2008 campaign promise of "change we can believe in."
"We proved that this government- a government of the people and by the people - still works for the people."
• Lord, we pray against this arrogance and pride of all our leaders who ignored the wishes of the citizens to not pass this healthcare bill. We pray they will be bound and stopped from passing any more ungodly laws.
• I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a native green tree. Yet he passed away, and behold, he was no more; Indeed I sought him, but he could not be found. (Psalm 37:35, 36)
7, At Rally, Call for Urgency on Immigration Reform - New York Times
Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum and a leading organizer of the event, said that rallies were planned in several cities on April 10, the last day of the Congressional recess. On May 1, Mr. Noorani said, immigrant groups would release a report card of every lawmaker and where they stand on the immigration overhaul. Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, said he thought an immigration bill could pass at the end of the year, after the storm of the November elections had passed.
• Father God, we pray against all who are going to pass immigration reform, which is not in the best interest of our country. We ask for Christians conservatives to come into office quickly to stop these attempts to change our nation.
• You shall not follow a crowd to do evil; nor shall you testify in a dispute so as to turn aside after many to pervert justice. (Exodus 23:2)
8. Obama Signs Health Insurance Overhaul into Law - Fox News
President Obama signed a landmark health insurance overhaul Tuesday in a ceremony that put the finishing touch on a yearlong battle that has defined his presidency.
The president, pausing to take in the cheers and applause from the room full of congressional Democrats, Cabinet secretaries and supporters, said the signing marks a "new season in America."
He called the completion of the bill both "remarkable and improbable," an acknowledgment of the hurdles and stiff opposition his health care push endured as well as the succession of past presidents and Congresses that have tried to pass a national health care overhaul.
- May God yet have mercy on our nation.
- "In wrath, remember mercy." (Habakkuk 3:2)
The Middle East In Focus
This week, for all the headlines cited below, please join us in proclaiming THIS DECREE:
"At that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of LORD [YHWH]; and all the nations shall be gathered unto it, to the name of LORD, to Jerusalem, neither shall they walk any more after the imagination of their evil heart." (Jer. 3:17)
1. Peace talks after settlement freeze - Deutche Welle
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said on Monday that the Palestinians would agree to hold indirect talks with Israel if they received assurances that the government of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu would abide by the recent demand of the Quartet for a total freeze of settlement construction.
2. EU to step up pressure on Israel over settlements - Deutche Welle
European foreign ministers meeting in Brussels have strongly criticized Israel's intention of building further settlements in East Jerusalem. They called for an immediate stop urging Israel to get back to negotiations.
3. Netanyahu: Jerusalem not a settlement - Ynet News
"As the world faces monumental challenges, I know that Israel and America will face them together," said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, opening his speech before the American Israel Public Affairs committee Monday, after a meeting with US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton.
4. IDF wraps 'counter-Goldstone Report' - Jerusalem Post
The IDF has completed a 1,000-page document dissecting the allegations in the Goldstone Commission report piece by piece, and lawyers in various governmental bodies are now going over the text to ensure it sounds like a legal document, rather than a military/public diplomacy one, The Jerusalem Post has learned.
The Good News Corner
God's Promise for Us
We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. (2 Corinthians 4:8,9)
Dear Prayer Partners,
I don't know about you, but as for me . . . these days I believe I can now understand more fully what Mary Magdalene and the disciples experienced and felt when they watched while our Savior was horribly crucified, and then buried in that tomb.
When the stone was rolled across the tomb, it must have seemed that all hope was lost. Where was the promise of their Messiah? And how could THIS be happening to them?
Of course, today we know the answer, which is that they had not yet seen "the whole picture." This was instead a time of trial . . . and of testing of faith.
Three days later, after the betrayal by Judas Iscariot, after the Crucifixion, and after that stone was rolled away -- BEHOLD, the GOOD NEWS!
He is NOT DEAD, but HE IS RISEN!! And the victory over hell, death and the grave is now ours, too!!
So tonight, in the middle of our own time of testing, we rest in the promise of His Word, and of the FINISHED WORK OF THE CROSS!! Amen!!
Sara Ballenger
Capitol Hill Prayer Partners
Worship With Us!
Oslo Gospel Choir :
Come, Now Is The Time To Worship
The Oslo Gospel Choir performed "Come, Now Is The Time To Worship" during their concert in the St.Jan Church in Gouda, the Netherlands in May 2005.
Worship with them by going here. Amen!!
