Capitol Hill Prayer Partners
P.O. Box 5152
Herndon, VA 20172-1970
chpp@patriot.net
The Daily Brief Thursday, June 13, 2013
"I will praise You, O Lord, with my whole heart;
I will tell of all Your marvelous works." (Psalm 9:1)
Guidelines for today's American Prayer Initiative can be found by going here.
Today's Daily Jot can be found by going to: www.dailyjot.com or by using
this link.
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The Daily Brief
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1. Congressman: Christian Soldiers Being Singled out for Punishment
- Fox News
A Midwestern lawmaker is calling on his colleagues in Congress to offer cover to an Army soldier under fire for his conservative political views and religious faith, and accusing the Obama administration of "creating a tyrannical culture of political correctness in the military." Rep. Tim Huelskamp, R-Kan., is introducing an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that would prevent the Army from conducting a court martial of Master Sgt. Nathan Sommers until the military first files a report for Congress to review. "The Secretary of the Army shall provide to Congress a report on activities with respect to Master Sergeant Nathan Sommers at least 90 days prior to taking any further disciplinary or administrative action against that individual," states Huelskamp's amendment.
- Father, it seems that persecution continues to increase in our military. We pray Your perfect will for Master Sergeant Sommers, and ask You to stand with him in this situation.
- "And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose." [Romans 8:28]
2. Baptists consider dropping Boy Scouts - USA Today
Southern Baptists are expected to vote on a resolution about the Boy Scouts on Wednesday at their annual meeting.
- Lord, as this controversy continues, we pray that Your people will begin to work together across denominational lines. As the article says, we can see a mass exodus of Boy Scout members, but we can also see an opportunity for the Pentecostal Royal Rangers to pick up new members. Let this situation, too, be a time of healing in the church!
- "that they all may be one, as You, Father are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me." [John 17:20]
3. Senators call for end to Justice Department's 'secret law' - Cnet
Eight U.S. senators today seized on leaks from the National Security Agency to call for an end to a "secret law" that governs how intelligence agencies electronically spy on Americans.
- Father, may all hidden "laws" be revealed to the American people. May this be a wake up call for our congressional leadership to stop the waves of both legal and illegal invasions of privacy.
- "And I say to you, My friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do." [Luke 12:4]
4. Across U.S., nearly half say government spying OK within limits: Poll - Reuters
Nearly half of all Americans say the U.S. government's broad surveillance tactics are acceptable within limits, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll on Tuesday that also found widespread concern about the methods that were revealed last week.
- Father, help the American people to understand that government limits have a tendency to expand and swirl out of control. Protect us from these recent surveillance tactics. May the American people stay alert and watchful to any methods that steal our privacy.
- preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded (2 Timothy 4:2-5)
5. ACLU sues Obama administration over NSA surveillance - LA Times
The American Civil Liberties Union announced Tuesday that it has filed a federal lawsuit against key members of President Obama's national security team over the National Security Agency's telephone surveillance, the first legal challenge to the newly disclosed intelligence gathering system.
- Lord, it is a rare thing that we can align ourselves with anything the ACLU does, but we ask that this action be successful in stopping the encroachment of the government into the lives of ordinary Americans. We pray for balance in the government's intelligence gathering methods.
- "Happy is the man who finds wisdom, and the man who gains understanding" [Proverbs 3:13]
6. Supreme Court Allows Ban on 'Gruesome' Abortion Images that May Disturb Children - Christian Post
The U.S. Supreme Court decided on Monday to not review the case of Scott v. Saint John's Church in the Wilderness, a case that involved a lower court banning display of explicit abortion images from being shown where children are likely to view them.
- Lord, we can agree that such images may be gruesome, but even more "gruesome" images are shown on television daily, and in evil contexts wholly created to terrify people. We pray that the churches which provide images of abortions will use wisdom in their anti-abortion campaigns, but that the truth of abortion and its consequences will be revealed.
-"Righteous are You, O Lord, and upright are Your judgements." [Psalm 119:137]
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The Middle East in Focus
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The Middle East in Focus
This week, for all the headlines cited below, please join us in proclaiming THIS DECREE:
"As in the days when you came out from the land of Egypt, I will show you miracles." (Micah 7:15)
1. PM: Recognition of Jewish state not precondition for peace talks - Ynet News
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday he would be willing to launch direct peace negotiations with the Palestinians without preconditions in order to reach a historic agreement that would end the conflict.
2. UN: Israel-Syria peace in danger, add Golan peacekeepers - Jerusalem Post
A spillover of violence from Syria's civil war into the Israeli Golan Heights is jeopardizing a decades old ceasefire between Israel and Syria, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a report to the UN Security Council on Wednesday.
3. Hot Mic Catches Egyptian Politician Discussing 'War' with 'Enemies' Israel and America - Blaze
Just last month, Secretary of State John Kerry quietly sent Egypt an additional $1.3 billion, even though Egypt has failed to live up to democracy standards. This didn't stop a prominent Egyptian politician from talking about Egypt's "enemy" the United States in what some pundits are classifying as a classic and embarrassing "hot mic" moment.
4. Kerry's plan: Core issues, then gestures, and finally Jerusalem - Israel Hayom
Senior diplomatic officials in Jerusalem say that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is set to unveil a gradual multistep peace plan between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
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The Persecuted Church
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Today's Focus: The Persecuted Church
" . . . when I am weak, then I am strong." (2 Corinthians 12:10b)
1. Egypt's Coptic Christians Flee to Georgia for Safety - Eurasianet
Increasingly under pressure in Egypt, the Copts, one of the world's oldest Christian communities, are starting to migrate to Georgia, a bastion of Orthodox Christianity in the South Caucasus. But the transition is not entirely a smooth one.
In Egypt, violent clashes between Copts and Muslims have been on the rise since the 2011 ouster of former President Hosni Mubarak, with many Christians reportedly preferring to leave than experience continuing harassment and discrimination. Earlier this month, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom announced that Egypt "is failing to meet international religious-freedom standards."
Copts, who classify themselves as an Orthodox Christian denomination, say that Georgia's strong Orthodox Christian heritage - Eastern Christianity took root here in the 4th century - motivated them to make the move. The country's relative proximity (Tbilisi is roughly a two-and-a-half-hour flight from Cairo) and reputation for relatively lax business and visa regulations also played a role.
2. Over 100 Punishments So far This Year for Christians in Kazakhstan - Forum 18
The criminal trial of 62-year-old atheist writer Aleksandr Kharlamov on charges of "inciting religious hatred" - which he rejects - is set to begin in Ridder this month. He has been held for three months in prison and psychiatric detention, mostly in cellars, and has lost 20 kilograms in weight, his partner Marina Kaplunskaya told Forum 18 News Service. Asked who had suffered because of what Kharlamov had written on religion, Ridder's Prosecutor Vitaly Shaber told Forum 18: "This Criminal Code Article does not need victims - if there had been any, a completely different Article would have been used." Astana Prosecutor's Office told Forum 18 a criminal case on the same charges was launched in March in connection with the activity of the city's Grace Protestant Church. The church's 66-year-old pastor Bakhytzhan Kashkumbayev is already in prison facing separate criminal charges of harming health, which he rejects. The alleged victim says her health has not been harmed.
3. U.S. Defends "Human Rights" of Muslim Perpetrators of Christian Persecution - Right Side News
Sweden to send Iranian Christian asylum seekers back to Iran to be tortured and possibly executed for the crime of leaving Islam. Also, the Terror WatchNigerian government recently did go on the offensive to try to contain the jihadis [of Boko Haram], only to be chastised by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, saying he was "concerned by credible allegations that the Nigerian security forces are committing gross human rights violations" against the jihadi mass murderers.
The Islamic jihad against Christians in Nigeria is proving to be the most barbaric. A new report states that 70% of Christians killed around the world in 2012 were killed in that African nation. Among some of the atrocities committed in March alone, at least 41 people were killed in a suicide bomb attack at a bus station in a predominantly Christian neighborhood. According to the Christian Association of Nigeria, these attacks "were a signpost of the intended extermination of Christians and Christianity from northern Nigeria."
According to the Rev. Jerome Ituah, "Out of the 52 Catholic churches in Maiduguri diocese, 50 of them have been destroyed by [terrorist group] Boko Haram. When two Christian brothers were returning home after Sunday church service, jihadis opened fire on them with machine guns, killing the brothers, as well as three others, and injuring several more Christians."
For more news about the Persecuted Church, and how you can be more involved in intercession for these precious saints, go here.
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Update: Senate Immigration Bill
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IT IS ZERO HOUR FOR SENATE IMMIGRATION BILL
The most sweeping overhaul of the nation's immigration system in nearly three decades finally arrives on the Senate floor this week.
Leaders in the upper chamber are aiming for passage by July 4 of a measure that would open up a road to citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants living in the United States. A bipartisan group of four Democrats and four Republicans spent several months crafting the bill, and the Senate Judiciary Committee put the finishing touches on it last month.
- Pray for our U.S. senators in these momentous decisions. Pray that all votes will blend with the providential oversight of a just and caring God to bring about a righteous decision for our nation and for the millions of illegal immigrants whose lives, families, and even destinies may turn on how this reform law will affect them. Pray that the will of God will triumph over self-focused interests in dealing with this vitally important bill from its formulation in the U.S. Senate to its enactment. Pray for the Lord's wisdom to prevail in the casting of votes.
- "'Give me now wisdom and knowledge to go out and come in before this people, for who can govern this people of yours, which is so great?' God answered Solomon, 'Because this was in your heart, and you have not asked possessions, wealth, honor, or the life of those who hate you, and have not even asked long life, but have asked wisdom and knowledge for yourself that you may govern my people over whom I have made you king, wisdom and knowledge are granted to you. I will also give you riches, possessions, and honor, such as none of the kings had who were before you, and none after you shall have the like.'" (2 Chronicles 1:10-12)
(Source: Intercessors for America)
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Obama Adds 3 Judicial Picks to Appeals Court
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OBAMA ADDS 3 JUDICIAL PICKS TO APPEALS COURT
Raising the stakes in a long-simmering battle with Senate Republicans, President Obama on Tuesday nominated three more judicial candidates to serve on the influential D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, a White House official confirmed.
Two weeks after getting his first nominee confirmed to the court, Mr. Obama nominated Patricia Ann Millett, who has served in administrations of both parties; Cornelia Pillard, who served as former deputy assistant attorney general and former assistant to the solicitor general; and Judge Robert L. Wilkins, who was confirmed unanimously for the D.C. District Court in 2010. (Intercessors for America)
- Pray for righteous judges to be selected for U.S. courts of appeal, those who will be guided by Constitutional legal foundations.
- "God is a righteous judge, a God who displays his wrath every day." (Psalm 7:11)
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Americans Oppose Government Snooping
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Americans Oppose Government Snooping
CBS released a poll yesterday asking Americans their views on the government's massive data mining and collection efforts. Not surprisingly, the vast majority of Americans (75%) approved of the government collecting phone records of Americans suspected of terrorist activity.
But 58% opposed the mass seizure of phone records related to "ordinary Americans." Just 38% supported that practice. Republicans and independents were strongly opposed (66% and 62% respectively) to the collection of everybody's records, whereas Democrats were evenly divided. (Gary Bauer)
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Big Brother Obama Is Watching
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Big Brother Obama Is Watching
by Phyllis Schlafly
June 12, 2013
It has become evident that Barack Obama's definition of "fundamentally transforming the United States" includes Big Brother harassing selected conservatives while monitoring everybody's email and telephone traffic. These seem to be among the surprising duties of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the National Security Agency (NSA), respectively.
It's clear that the IRS has been unfairly targeting and mistreating more than 500 conservative organizations, especially if they use such words as "tea party," "liberty," or "patriotic" on their tax returns or tax-exempt applications. IRS then bogs them down with years of delays and demands for nosy and unnecessary information.
A House Ways and Means Committee hearing on June 4 exposed some of the IRS's obnoxious behavior. The representative of an Iowa anti-abortion organization applying for tax-exempt status said the IRS asked her about the content of her organization's prayers. . .
John Eastman, chairman of the National Organization for Marriage, said that the IRS leaked the organization's list of its best donors (a page in the tax return titled "not for public inspection").
The list was then published on the website of the Human Rights Campaign, a pro-gay organization which is the victim organization's "principal political opponent" on the marriage issue.
. . . Another serious problem is the wholesale stealing of U.S. military and industrial secrets and intellectual property by organized cyber hackers operating from China, Russia and India. But Obama was too scared to challenge China's president at their meeting last week.
Obama ended his recent meeting with China's President Xi Jinping with a secret session (no notetakers present). That's dangerous! How do we know Obama didn't promise future concessions like he did to the Russians (when he didn't realize the mike was live) during his last meeting with Putin's representative?
. . . As to the snooping by the Obama Administration of Americans' internet usage and calling patterns, at least NSA employees have taken an oath of loyalty to the United States of America, but we do not have that assurance about the employees of the giant computer companies that are playing ball with the NSA to gather this nosy information about Americans.
. . . It tells us a lot about the Obama Administration when we compare the Administration's gathering of internet and phone records of hundreds of millions of Americans with the fact that it was incapable of doing a competent background check on the Boston bomber, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, either before or after his trip to Russia, even after being alerted by the Russians that he was dangerous. (Read entire article here.)
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The Good News Corner
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The Good News Corner:
Valedictorian Roy Costner IV Ripped Up His Approved Speech,
Recited Lord's Prayer
. . . Liberty High School's graduation day held at Clemson's Littlejohn Coliseum. Roy Costner was the valedictorian of Liberty High School's Class of 2013. He was given strict guidelines for his speech and specifically warned to refrain from any prayers or religious references in his remarks. School officials required him to submit the text of his speech for approval prior to graduation, and Costner turned in a draft with no religious content. But when the moment came for him to deliver his speech, Costner confidently approached the podium, took his approved speech out of the school notebook, and ripped it in half for all to see.
. . . "Those that we look up to, they have helped carve and mold us into the young adults that we are today. I'm so glad that both of my parents led me to the Lord at a young age," he continued. And I think most of you will understand when I say . . ." he said, pausing briefly and stunning the crowd of several thousand with the words he spoke next. "Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen."
Just a few words into his recitation of the Lord's Prayer, massive applause and cheering erupted from the audience, so loud in fact that Costner had to raise his voice to be heard.
"Well that was encouraging and emotional," he thought to himself, assuming that this chapter of his life had closed. But he had no idea of the repercussions of his actions. It hasn't even been a week since the event, and videos of his graduation speech have gone viral with one clip at over 170,000 views on YouTube so far.
"I've been so surprised that my story has made national news," Costner said. "It's drawing attention to the issue of prayer at school events, and I'm really encouraged to hear that the coverage might possibly cause the school board to reverse their anti-prayer policy." (Christian Post) Read more
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Pray for the Harvest!
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Pray for the Harvest!
"Do you not say, 'Four months more and then the harvest'? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest." (John 4:35)
Every day, in every nation on earth, tens of thousands of men and women are making decisions for Christ. Now, you can monitor this amazing fact online by literally "watching" as these souls are born again into the Kingdom.
Of course, the identities of those who are coming to the Lord are never revealed, but our God knows who they are!
Join us as we monitor these "names" daily, praying over each one to be mentored and to grow in his or her faith . . . even in these perilous times. You may visit either or both of the sites below, to pray for fields that are ripe for harvest.
> > > OPTION ONE: AboutJesus.net
Go here!
> > > OPTION TWO: The Great Commission Map!
Go here!
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Worship With Us Today!
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Worship With Us Today!
"Healing Rain / Let It Rain" [A New Hallelujah]
Michael W. Smith
Healing rain is coming down
It's coming nearer to this old town
Rich and poor, weak and strong
It's bringing mercy, it won't be long
