Table of contents for May 2019 in JOY! Magazine

Mmusi Maimane is the leader of the official opposition in South Africa, the Democratic Alliance (DA). Errol Naidoo, the Founder and CEO of Family Policy Institute, recently interviewed Maimane about the DA’s stance on Christian values. Although the DA does not classify itself as a Christian party, Maimane himself is an outspoken Christian with Pastoral training and a history in ministry. Q You’re a Christian Mmusi, what do you have to say to those who are questioning your faith? “I am unashamedly a child of God. I gave my life to Jesus at a young age, and have continued to serve Him. I served in my local church, I have been in ministry. I feel that what I do now in our nation isn’t a function of serving a political…

Virtually everything that you do online and offline is being monitored, tracked, or recorded by someone. Could you imagine what life would be like if the government compiled all of that information into a giant database and used it to punish those who had engaged in politically-incorrect behaviour? Chinese crackdown Globally, Internet censorship has escalated dramatically, but over in China specifically, the government is cracking down on a much wider array of online and offline activities. If you fail to make a credit card payment, get into an argument in public, or say the wrong thing on social media, you could suddenly find yourself restricted from conducting a whole host of normal economic activities. Once discredited, everywhere restricted The marketing slogan for this is “once discredited, everywhere restricted.” China’s social…

I’ve had the opportunity to speak at several Christian conferences and churches on the importance of parents teaching their kids apologetics (how to make a case for and defend the truth of the Christian faith). When I speak, I often begin by asking two questions. First, I ask parents, “How many of you have come here already knowing that our world is becoming very secular and that your child’s faith is likely to be challenged in some way because of it?” One hundred percent of the hands go up . . . every time. Second, I ask parents, “How many of you would go to the next step of saying you’re confident that you know specifically what those big faith challenges are, how to effectively address them with your kids,…

God-Bearer For many Protestants, hearing Mary called the “Mother of God” is certainly strange, perhaps even heretical. After all, who could possibly be God’s mother? Yet, this name has important historical roots. In Christianity’s early centuries, much debate ensued over Jesus’ nature. Was He fully human; was He fully God? If He did have two natures, how did the natures relate to each other? One side argued that Jesus was actually two ‘persons’— one human, the other divine—united together. Contrary to this, others argued that Jesus was one person with two natures. These people insisted on calling Mary Theotokos, which means “God-Bearer,” in order to emphasise that Jesus was indeed one person who was fully God. Eastern Orthodox churches mainly use this term today for Mary. It doesn’t mean that…

The Bible says that we have been given the power to bind and loose on earth, whatever is bound and loosed in Heaven, and it’s important to remember that it’s not our power that deals with the devil, but the power of the Living God who lives inside us. We are a temple; a vessel filled with the Holy Spirit Who longs to operate His supernatural healing power through us! Power & resources of Heaven The Holy Spirit is the part of us that connects us to all the power and resources of Heaven, while we are on the earth! God wants the very atmosphere of Heaven to touch and influence people. Without the manifestation of supernatural gifts, Heaven is only going to be what they read about in the…

Let’s face it. Parenting is hard work, an emotional and mental endurance workout. It comes with great hopes and joys as well as difficult challenges and struggles. Unfortunately, it does not come with an easy-to-do manual. Each child is different – and each child demands something different from their parent. Although I can’t tell you the one perfect thing to do as a parent to assure your children become healthy and mature adults, I can tell you about four common parenting mistakes to avoid. Avoiding them can help you enjoy more of the hopes and joys of parenting than the struggles and disappointments: • Enabling Instead of enabling your children, begin to empower them. Parents enable their children by indulging them, satisfying their every desire and ‘bailing them out’ in…

“ I am a 20-year-old student from a Hindu background. I love music and enjoyed listening to your programmes. These radio programmes introduced me to Jesus Christ, and by listening to the broadcasts I learnt more about Him. I have been struggling with serious headaches and constant pain in my ears for a very long time. The follow-up FEBA staff doing follow-up work regularly prayed for me. It taught me to trust God for my healing. God did a miracle and today I am completely healed! I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Saviour and was baptised. I am now very happy and blessed and regularly attend church. ” – Listener from India. More than 50% of people in the world still have no access to internet Far East Broadcasting…

A young mother called “Umida” was killed by her husband in Uzbekistan on 9 February 2019 because she decided to leave Islam and follow Christ. She was attempting to escape his threats and fly to Turkey to seek refuge with Christian friends when he caught up with her at Tashkent Airport, forced her into a car and slit her throat. Her two-year-old son must now grow up motherless. The little boy will also be effectively fatherless for many years as Umida’s husband has been arrested and is likely to serve a long time in jail. What did Umida do to anger her husband? She became interested in Christianity, started going to church, and asked a friend for a Bible in the Uzbek language. This was enough to make him lock…

Are you excited about your life or do you feel as if you are merely existing? Are you moving towards a desired goal or are you drifting along without any sense of purpose? Is your marriage boring? There are reasons we feel stuck, discouraged, or adrift. Reasons why people lose their enthusiasm for life and lose their hope, their sense of purpose and joy. Has your dream died? If you truly want to pursue and reach your full potential, you must acknowledge two things: God has placed more in you than you realise, and you have likely settled for the life you have now. Your dream has died! You may be asking, “How does God see me?” Your Heavenly Father sees you through eyes of love and forgiveness. God sees…

Deuteronomy 7:22 One of the most amazing things for me as a member of parliament is that meaningful and profound moments happen right alongside everything else. They cause you to smile – your heart may even want to burst with joy or break with compassion – but they quickly become part of one big amazing tapestry of life-changing decisions, successes, near successes, and failures. Moments of revelation There are many moments of exquisite revelation and realisation of God’s love and awesome majesty in parliament. One of these for me was when I actually made a difference – and made history doing it! The history-making I am referring to is being the first member of the parliament of SA to have a Private Members’ Bill be accepted by a committee, then…

In the once-Christian world of ‘the West’, we seem to be awash in crazy thinking, which gets crazier by the day: • Sam-sex marriage • Gender-bending ideology being taught to children in schools • Laws being passed to erase one's birth sex from birth certificates • Regulations being enacted to make it an offense to call someone by a pronoun that reflects their biological sex when the person prefers a'other'gender pronouns (or even ‘non-gender’; neither male nor female) • There is a movement to try to get equal rights or animals as or humans There is even talk of ‘rights’ for robots • Legalisation and promotion of abortion in the name of ‘Women’s rights’ that allow killing of a baby in his/her mother’s womb right up to the full term…

“If statistics indicate that one in three will suffer from mental health issues at some point in their life, alongside the reality that most people simply cannot afford ongoing professional help, then it is clear that a potential crisis is pending. I believe that it is crucial that the local church rises up and finds a way to invest in offering levels of counselling care & support, so that we can be more effective as the body of Christ to those around us.”– Madz Deyzel Madz Deyzel – who is the director of Grace Counselling, a ministry of Grace Family Church – has taken the ministry National for this exact reason. Her mission is to see every church in South Africa equipped with foundational counselling resources so that collectively the…

One doctrine of Mariology that is particularly offensive to many Protestants is the belief that Mary appears supernaturally throughout the world, called apparitions. The Catholic church recognises twelve officially canonised apparitions of Mary, usually named after the place where they occurred (e.g., Guadalupe, Fatima, Lourdes). These are physically visible appearances of the Virgin Mary, either witnessed by individuals or several people over the course of time, and usually accompanied by cures or some other miracle. Some have included statues of Mary that wept. Tens of millions of Christians make pilgrimages to such sites each year, which adds to the Protestant suspicion of idolatry. As the Catholic church has investigated nearly 300 of these claims, yet has only officially recognised a dozen of them, this should cause us to view apparitions…

Jericho’s name likely comes from the pagan moon god Yarikh, a Canaanite deity for whom Jericho was a centre of worship. Archaeologists have discovered the remains of over twenty successive settlements in the area, which makes Jericho one of the oldest inhabited cities in the world. But how does this correspond to Joshua’s prophetic condemnation of the city (Josh 6:26)? Many people have wrongly believed Joshua’s prophecy meant the city would never be rebuilt. At the time of Jesus, though, Jericho was inhabited (Matt 20:29; Mark 10:46) and even mentioned by Him in His parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:30). Also note that Joshua’s prophecy was fulfilled hundreds of years later during Ahab’s reign (1 Kings 16:34).…

His light does shine. This statement is never truer than when confronted by a sea of unbelieving darkness. In 1940, the Muslim League decided to separate and give Muslims in India an independent nation. In 1947, Pakistan became that independent nation. Pakistanis generally detest Americans. If one is European in appearance, they immediately think one is American. I was doing a revival in Pakistan – many thousands got saved. I travelled at night for security reasons. On one trip we came to a roadblock, I was sitting in the back of the vehicle with my interpreter next to me. A very heavily armed official shone his torch into the back of the vehicle and straight onto my face. He immediately started to scream at the top of his voice. In…

The Tent Evangelistic Ministry was born in the heart of Evangelist André Coetzee. Andre received His calling from God in 1969 and that calling was to evangelise the Cape Peninsula and the broader South Africa. To this end, Evangelist Andre Coetzee was diligent and very faithful. He unfortunately passed away, but his legacy of Mass Tent Evangelism continued to be upheld by his eldest son, Evangelist Nicky Coetzee. He promised his father just before his father passed away that he would never relinquish tent evangelism, but that he would continue where his father left off. Upholding the vision Tell Them Tent Campaigns takes the Gospel to towns all over South Africa. Nicky served his father from the inception, and from the tender age of nineteen years he started taking over…

NIGERIA BRAZZAVILLE, CONGO Port Harcourt, Nigeria 8 – 11 November 2018 The state governor, his wife, and their entire government entourage of Imo State attended the crusade and were present throughout the service as Evangelist Daniel Kolenda preached the Gospel. Afterwards, the governor asked if we would come back again, we praise the Lord for open doors. A WORD OF KNOWLEDGE FOR A USELESS ARM On the Saturday night, Daniel had a word of knowledge about someone whose right forearm was fractured. A man came forward who had fallen in a terrible construction accident seven years earlier. Since that time, the bone had not healed and he was unable to use his arm. The deep scar, almost the length of his forearm, was clearly visible, but Jesus healed him completely.…

“As I left the certainty for the uncertainty – about five years ago – I knew one thing: God is in control and He will provide,” writes Francois Snyman. My family and I packed up our entire life and moved to the mountainous kingdom of Lesotho. We arrived in the small village of Semonkong, as missionaries. Semonkong is a tiny village, with a population of 8000 people, situated in the Maseru region. It once served as a hideout for outlaws and to this day has an untamed, remote atmosphere. Semonkong means “Place of Smoke” which derives from the Maletsunyane Falls which create “smoke” – it is the highest single-drop waterfall in Southern Africa. Building the community One thing that stood out to us was the poverty in this country. Lesotho’s…

Israel is home to the longest salt cave in the world thanks to the hard work of Israeli researchers and 80 cave divers from around the globe. It is a record-breaking 10 km length. For thirteen years, Iran’s “Three Nudes” cave on Qeshm Island was considered the world’s longest salt cave. Now, that title belongs to Israel’s “Malham” cave. Malham is located in Mount Sedom in Israel’s Dead Sea region, which is famous for being the lowest place on earth and its high salt content. The cave was initially discovered by Hebrew University’s Cave Research Center (CRC) in the 1980s. “The Malham Salt Cave is a river cave,” explained Professor Frumkin, director of the CRC at HU’s Institute of Earth Sciences. “Water from a surface stream flowed underground and dissolved…

In 1957, the social psychologist Leon Festinger coined the term ‘cognitive dissonance’ to describe the stress that results from holding two or more contradictory beliefs at the same time. According to Festinger, people will attempt to alleviate the stress by either changing their minds about one of the ideas or, more commonly, convincing themselves the ideas really aren’t contradictory. The latter usually results in an incoherent mess, something a recent Barna report amply demonstrates. Contradicting results The report, entitled Reviving Evangelism, found that virtually every practicing American Christian believes that “part of their faith means being a witness about Jesus.” Similarly, virtually all of them agree that “the best thing that could ever happen to someone is for them to know Jesus.” Solid foundation? This sounds like a solid foundation…

When Jesus was on the Cross, both John the apostle and Mary the mother of Jesus stood nearby. In John 19:26–27 we read, “When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, ‘Woman, here is your son,’ and to the disciple, ‘Here is your mother.’ From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.” The clear understanding of the passage is that Jesus commanded John to care for Mary after His death. Jesus’ brothers were not believers Mary was most certainly a widow at this point in her life and also an older woman. Though she had other sons, Jesus chose John to provide care for Mary after His death. Why? Jesus’ brothers did not become believers until after…

CHAPTER 3 TRUST IN THE LORD WITH EVERYTHING YOU HAVE PROVERBS 3:1-4 “ My child, never forget the things I have taught you. Store my commands in your heart. If you do this, you will live many years, and your life will be satisfying. Never let loyalty and kindness leave you! Tie them around your neck as a reminder. Write them deep “within your heart. Then you will find favour with both God and people, and you will earn a good reputation. PROVERBS 3 :5-12 “ Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take. Don’t be impressed with your own wisdom. Instead, fear the Lord and…

We are part of the mighty family of God and each one of us is divinely planted by God. There is a reason why you are planted in a certain ministry and family. Where you are planted is where your roots must grow deep. We all know the story about Daniel and the lion’s den, the famous 21-day-fast, and his part in rebuilding the wall of Jerusalem. We know he was an educated man of wisdom, prayer, and faith. Which of these qualities were responsible for his promotion according to the Bible? “Then this Daniel was preferred above the presidents and princes, because an excellent spirit was in him; and the king thought to set him over the whole realm.” – Dan 6:3 His spirit of excellence It was the…

Mothers have one of the most influential and important jobs in the world – and one of the most difficult. Just consider some of the duties a mother carries out on a daily basis: 1 Chef A mother prepares 2-3 meals every day. Sometimes, your children will love the meals you prepare. Sometimes, they will hate them. Most of the time, they simply wolf down the food you prepare and run to their next activity. Occasionally, mothers will receive the cherished “thank you.” Hearing those two words will make every meal you have ever prepared worthwhile. 2 Housekeeper As a mother you will have the opportunity to clean all kinds of messes—clothes left on the floor, cups left in the living room, spilled food, dirty diapers, vomit, the list goes…

Last month we celebrated Passover, or as commonly called, Easter. We celebrated the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, and everything that accompanies this momentous event. Hebrews 2:14 tells us that because we are human, Jesus Christ became human so that He could taste death. Through His death, Jesus was able to defeat satan. He defeated satan by defeating satan’s greatest weapon, death. In addition, He: “released those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.” – Hebrews 2:15. Wow, satan is defeated, the power of death over us is defeated, and we are released from the bondage of the fear of death. We don’t have to fear death or be bound by this fear. We are certain of who we are, Who has our back,…

In Romans 1, we read the story of Paul the apostle giving a message to the church in Rome. After the resurrection, Paul tells the church that their faith is being proclaimed to the whole world; that Jesus, their Messiah, was raised from the dead and is seated at the right hand of the Father. Why is the Church not proclaiming the Gospel to the whole world today? Paul and the early disciples set the foundation for the whole world to know the Good News of God. Why isn’t the Church doing this today? We aren’t even changing our suburbs and communities. Why can’t 10 committed Christian families, filled with the power and energy of Holy Spirit, change one school? Jesus didn’t ask, He told Why is the Church not…

Brazzaville, Congo 9 – 12 August 2018 Dancing and Worship is part of our crusades It was not easy getting to our destination, as our technical team driving the trucks came under crossfire of bullets on the roads in rural areas through Cameroon. They also had to endure washed-out roads, near tragic accidents, and inflexible bureaucracy. This crusade had to be postponed by more than a month, but proved to be more than worth it! Evangelist Daniel Kolenda preached a clear, fervent presentation of God’s forgiveness of sin through His Son, Jesus. As a result, tens of thousands submitted their lives to Jesus with more than 201 670 decision cards confirming their decisions to follow Jesus. It is mind-blowing considering that Brazzaville has a population of about 1.2 million people…

Many have at least heard, passing by or around public space, about the Ramadan fast – the fasting month for Muslims. As Ramadan approaches, millions of Muslims around the globe are preparing to pray, study the Quran, give to the poor, and are doing what they can, hoping for ‘Allah’s mercy’ and elimination of some of their sins. For Christians living in Muslim countries, Ramadan is a difficult time when many believers experience heightened persecution for their faith in Jesus Christ. Ramadan is taking place from the 5th May – 4th June 2019. What is Ramadan? Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar and, according to Muslim belief, the Quran was given as a revelation during this month. Fasting is one of the five pillars of Islam and refraining from…