Hello!

I hope you had a great weekend.

Would you like a free copy of my new book?  If you are artistic and know how to make a CD/DVD cover, then you could get one!  I'm offering a free copy to the person who submits the best cover for my new book.  You can see all about it and the resources on the CD here: http://skepticsannotatedbible.org.  I'm using DVD cases, so please submit your DVD covers (and graphics) as soon as possible.  I will be the judge of all entries and the contest will end in late December.

Please pray for my debate.  Today, I'm debating a man named Stan Kohls from the Ventura Freethinkers organization in Los Angeles.  It will be a moderated debate and should be quite exciting.  Please pray that the people who hear it will be encouraged to trust Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.  The MP3 for this debate should be available by Tuesday evening at http://sa.jcsm.org.

Have you ever heard of Omega-3, fatty acids?  Well, right now, they are a prime supplement for health-conscious people.  I read that I should have some because my hair was a bit dry.  In a very short time, I noticed a big difference!  These fish oils can also clear up acne and increase cardiovascular health.  I suggest researching this supplement and if you would like a free sample, follow this link.  This company will give you one.  Link: http://www.coromega.com/06Free_Sample/form_consumers.html.

Indie Gospel Radio is a Christian station that broadcasts the music you may not be hearing on your regular, Christian music stations.  They are based on the internet and serve the Lord by helping lesser-known artists get known and heard.  So, if you are an artist or a listener, please visit http://indiegospelradio.org and check them out.

For several weeks, I've been using a free, internet communications program called Trillian.  It is quite popular because it incorporates AIM, YIM, MSN, ICQ, and IRC into one program!  You don't need to have a bunch of windows open, programs running, or nagging icons.  If you're interested in simplifying your internet chatting, you should go here to check out Trillian: http://www.trillian.cc.

Is your computer running slowly?  Have you downloaded some odd programs, lately?  Well, Ad-aware is a free program that will find and remove programs that are harvesting information from your computer.  I've run this program several times and removed nearly 100 "data miners"!  It only takes a few minutes and it is well worth the trouble.  Protect your private information and have Ad-aware show you which programs have been informing the public about you!  Link: http://lavasoft.element5.com/support/download/.

Foodnetwork.com is a great place to find recipes, cooking utensils, and much more.  I've been watching some of their TV shows and learning how to cook better.  They also have a mailing list that sends a weekly recipe to you.  If you look food and want to cook it, then visit the Food Network!

Did you know that I'm a soccer coach?  I've coached several teams, over the past eight years, and I've just accepted another coaching position.  This season, I'll be coaching the boys Junior Varsity team of a local, public high school.  Please pray that the season goes well, the kids have fun and improve, and see the light of Christ through me.

Thanks to those that prayed for my desire to get into better shape.  I've already lost 6 pounds!  I'm sure some of it was water that I was retaining.  This week, I'll begin integrating some workouts.

I pray that God blesses you as you choose to grow in Him.

This is your ministry, so please feel free to link to JCSM and forward these devotions to your friends and family. On JCSM, there are over 50,000 web pages of pictures, forums, midis, Bible lessons, humor, proverbial stories, links, devotions, poetry, prayer journals, and much more!

JCSM has encouraging sermons, exciting debates, and the Bible on MP3 online and you can freely stream and download them!  Come and listen at http://sa.jcsm.org.

If you consider yourself either a theological scholar, a seeker, or a student of the Word, then you'll enjoy the Inerrancy Discussion Board.  It's the #1 place for discussing the inerrancy of God's Word!  Come and see: http://www.inerrancy.com (the Inerrancy Discussion Board is sponsored and administrated by JCSM).

Would you like to support God’s work on the web? If this ministry has touched you in a special way, please pray and consider sending a gift to JCSM. You can join us in our vision to reach people on the web with the good news! Either email me for more information or simply go here: http://vision.jcsm.org.

Visit the JCSM Study Center!  We have over 550mb of resources like English and foreign Bibles, maps, ancient literature, commentaries, Greek and Hebrew dictionaries, and concordances and much more!  Plus, it's all free.  Link: http://study.jcsm.org.

Welcome to the new readers of this message! Here is your Devotion, A Moment of Introspection, JCSM's Challenge, the Word of the Week, a faith-builder from "The Skeptic's Annotated Bible: Corrected and Explained," and the Quotes of the Week. Have a fantastic week and God bless you!

Love in Christ

Jason Gastrich, B.A., M.A.B.T.

ICQ#: 20731140, AIM: MrJasonGastrich, YIM: Jesus_Saved_Jason

The Weekly Devotion (click here to listen!)

"Avoid Laziness"

Proverb 6:6-11  "Go to the ant, you sluggard!  Consider her ways and be wise, which, having no captain, overseer or ruler, provides her supplies in the summer, and gathers her food in the harvest.  How long will you slumber, O sluggard?  When will you rise from your sleep?  A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep - so shall your poverty come on you like a prowler, and your need like an armed man."

Proverb 20:4  "The lazy man will not plow because of winter; He will beg during harvest and have nothing."

Proverb 29:18a (KJV)  "Where there is no vision, the people perish."

Matthew 6:33, 34  "But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.  Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble."

Insight: You may not always know what to do, but if you do nothing, then you are being lazy.  Plus, just doing "stuff" doesn't make you wise and active.  Discover what God wants you to do and do it.  Avoid laziness - spiritual, physical, and mental laziness.  It can only do harm.

Prayer: "Thank you for warning us about laziness, Lord.  Help us to have more of your wisdom in our lives.  Bless us and lift us up.  Help us to find what we should be doing.  Let us do it with all of our hearts.  Thank you for being good and faithful.  Remind us that You are worthy of our praise and devotion.  Help us to keep You number one in our lives.  We love You, Lord.  Remove our worries and fears.  Give us strength and perseverance.  Encourage the ones that feel like giving up and giving in.  Stimulate the ones that are lazy and wasting the precious time and resources that You have given to them.  Convict us with your Holy Spirit.  Let us do your will.  In Jesus' name, Amen."

America's Foundation

Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), the 26th President of the United States, was a soldier, author and Nobel Prize Winner (1906).

"I reverently invoke for my guidance the direction and favor of Almighty God." - "March 4, 1901, Inaugural Address.  Benjamin Weiss, "God in American History:  A Documentation of America's Religious Heritage" (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1966), pp. 166.  Willard Cantelon, "Money Master of the World" (Plainfield, NJ: Logos International, 1976), p. 121."

"The true Christian is the true citizen, lofty of purpose, resolute in endeavor, ready for a hero's deeds, but never looking sown on his task because it is cast in the day of small things; scornful of baseness, awake to his own duties as well as to his rights, following the higher law with reverence, and in this world doing all that in his power lies, so that when death comes he may feel that mankind is in some degree better because he lived." - Tryon Edwards, D.D., "The New Dictionary of Thoughts - A Cyclopedia of Quotations" (Garden City, NY: Hanover House, 1852, The Standard Book Company, 1963), p. 92.

"A thorough knowledge of the Bible is worth more than a college education."  - Alfred Armand Montapert, "Distilled Wisdom" (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall Inc., 1965), p. 36.  Bob Cutshall, "More Light for the Day" (Minneapolis, MN: Northwestern Products, Inc., 1991), 2.17.

"No people on earth have more cause to be thankful than ours, and this is said reverently, in no spirit of boastfulness in our own strength, but with the gratitude to the Giver of good who has blessed us." - March 4, 1905, in his Second Inaugural Address.  "Proclaim Liberty" (Dallas, TX: Word of Faith), p. 2.

"After a week on perplexing problems... it does so rest my soul to come into the house of The Lord and to sing and mean it, 'Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty' ... (my) great joy and glory that, in occupying an exalted position in the nation, I am enabled, to preach the practical moralities of The Bible to my fellow-countrymen and to hold up Christ as the hope and Savior of the world." - Ferdinand C. Iglehart, "Theodore Roosevelt - The Man As I Knew Him" (A. L. Burt, 1919).  "Our Christian Heritage," Letter from Plymouth Rock (Marlborough, NH: The Plymouth Rock Foundation), p. 6.

"Progress has brought us both unbounded opportunities and unbridled difficulties.  Thus, the measure of our civilization will not be that we have done much, but what we have done with that much.  I believe that the next half century will determine if we will advance the cause of Christian civilization or revert to the horrors of brutal paganism.  The thought of modern industry in the hands of Christian charity is a dream worth dreaming.  The thought of industry in the hands of paganism is a nightmare beyond imagining.  The choice between the two is upon us."  - 1909, as quoted by George Grant, "The Quick and the Dead" (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1981), p. 134.  John Eidsmoe, "Columbus & Cortez, Conquerors for Christ" (Green Forest, AR: New Leaf Press, 1992), pp. 296-297.

"Every thinking man, when he thinks, realizes that the teachings of the Bible are so interwoven and entwined with our while civic and social life that it would be literally impossible of us to figure ourselves what that life would be if these standards were removed.  We would lose almost all the standards by which we now judge both public and private morals; all the standards towards which we, with more or less resolution, strive to raise ourselves."  - Charles E. Jones, "The Books You Read" (Harrisburg, PA: Executive Books, 1985), p. 117.

A Moment of Introspection

God didn't say, "Here's what I think, what do you think?"

Share the gospel with someone you do not know!

God bless you as you meet this week's challenge.

aggelos (Greek) - angels: to bring tidings, a messenger (especially an angel), a pastor

The Skeptic's Annotated Bible: Corrected and Explained

"The Skeptic's Annotated Bible" claims:

Genesis 6:4 - "There were giants in the earth in those days." And they had sex with "the daughters of men." Well, I suppose it's good to know that. But why is there no archaeological evidence for the existence of these giants?

"The Skeptic's Annotated Bible: Corrected and Explained" responds:

These giants were pre-flood giants.  They were killed in the Great Flood.

(This explanation came from "The Skeptic's Annotated Bible: Corrected and Explained", by Jason Gastrich.  This book is on CD and explains over 3,000 difficulties regarding the entire Bible at http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.org.)

Pray to the Lord for a hunger for His Word.

You could read the Bible and not want to know it.

Are you attentive in church?

If you don't agree with the Word, then you aren't right.

The Bible is the most pre-eminent truth.

Worship is an act of respect when the character of God is revealed.

Write down what you don't know and find out.

Your faith grows as you learn lessons from your experiences.

As American Christians, we tend to be arrogant with the Word of God.

It often takes something tragic to make us realize that we aren't that righteous.

These quotes came from God, me, and Miles McPhearson.

Do you need more quotes?  We have thousands in our archives!  They are located here: http://quotes.jcsm.org.

These quotes can be used for sanctification and fun. Most of them are directly based on scripture and scriptural principles. Some of the quotes are humorous or rhetorical, others are written from sermons and Bible studies, and some are lyrics from songs. If you’d like me to go into more detail on any of them, please email me.

Like most verses in the Bible, they can be debated. To use what I’ve written in the most beneficial way, try and trace them back to the scriptures and apply the true principles to your life in a meaningful way! Please don’t sell my quotes or publish them for profit. If English is not your first language, you may not understand some of the quotes. I'm sorry, but some of them are English metaphors and deal with multiple word meanings. God bless you all!

Please make a commitment to pray for this ministry. As every believer is tempted and tried, this ministry faces trials also. God has blessed me, JCSM and the people who have been reached! Unfortunately, the enemy knows this and spiritual warfare is the result. Please at least pray that the devotions continue to be written religiously, the web pages stay on the www and the readers are blessed, sanctified and protected from evil. Thank you very much in advance!

Do you want to help people receive the good news?  We’re reaching new people every day with God’s awesome Word! If God has blessed you and you wish to send a love offering to JCSM, please send your gift to the address below.

You can join our vision and help this ministry! Your donations will keep these ministries running and further our visions for evangelism. Hundreds of web pages have been created to lead people to the Lord. Frequently, we make new ones and they are used to bring more and more people into a closer relationship with Jesus Christ. We’re certain there will be more ways to reach people in the future.

JCSM is a 501(c)(3), non-profit organization.  If you wish to contact us in the mail or send support, please make checks payable to Jesus Christ Saves Ministries.  Here is our mailing address:

Jesus Christ Saves Ministries

3219 Clairemont Mesa Blvd. #212

San Diego, CA 92117

Along with getting support, we also give support! JCSM regularly gives to churches, Christian ministries and needy people. Another function of this ministry is to do counseling. We are always answering questions about life, the Lord and everything in between. Lastly, we do a lot of research on religious topics on the internet and library. You will definitely see the results of our hard work and your loving support, in the web pages, and in the weekly devotions!

Fishes and Loaves (FALO) is a great, missions organization.  They have helped many people embark on missions trips to the uttermost parts of the world.  If you are interested in missions, please visit http://www.gofalo.net.

Do you need to find a solid, Christian church?  I've attended numerous, Calvary Chapel churches and I've been very blessed by their Bible-based sermons, inspiring worship, and kind members.  If you don't have a home church, if you're traveling, or if you need to find a new church, I recommend visiting the following site and locating a Calvary Chapel near you: http://www.calvarychapel.org.

OCCM (Online Christ-Centered Ministries) has certified JCSM as a ministry that preaches the true, biblical gospel of Jesus Christ.  OCCM is a professional membership association for Christian ministries and people that reside on and off the internet.  Are you OCCM certified?  For more information, go here: http://www.occm.org.

Would you prayerfully consider supporting JCSM with $5 per month?  If God leads you to take this step of faith and bless this ministry, PayPal will process a donation subscription for you.  It will only take a minute and you can join us in this dynamic ministry that constantly reaches people all over the world.  Here is the link for $5 donations: http://5.jcsm.org.

Over 50,000 web pages!

Jesus loves you!

John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever should believe in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life."