James 5:7 Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain.
Hosea 10:12 Sow for yourselves righteousness, reap the fruit of unfailing love, and break up your unplowed ground; for it is time to seek the LORD, until he comes and showers righteousness on you.
John 15:1 "I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener."
John 15:2 He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.
John 15:3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.
John 15:4 Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
John 15:5 "I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.
In these days we must be producing personally and collectively as the body of Christ. The church has, however, become more about entertainment and numbers than it has about fruit in recent years. This reality is a demonstration that we may not be in Him enough to bear much fruit. I challenge you to consider the ministry that you are doing. Is it bearing fruit? You may not be a pastor or leader in the church, but you do have a ministry. Is your personal ministry bearing fruit? God refers to the lost as "the precious fruit of the earth." He sends the rain to refresh and revive the living plants and to nurture the seeds (fruit) to grow. I have noticed a great zeal for the refreshing and reviving of the church. I do not see the same zeal for the "the precious fruit of the earth." I have seen much cutting off and pruning of leaders at every level of the ministry. I declare to you that it is time to turn our eyes to the earth and what it is about to produce! You are clean because of the Word that has been deposited into you and the testing of your faith. In you, God has found a branch that is now ready to produce. You truly can do all things through Christ who strengthens you. In these next days, months, years that we have before Christ's return, the earth will produce a bountiful harvest. It is my prayer that each of us will find the zeal to minister and produce fruit as powerful and exciting as we found the days of refreshing. He is the Lord of the harvest, and we are His children.
Provocative prophetic implications (See Revelation 14:9) Top Stories - ZDnet / Cnet Reporting on 3/30/2006
ID cards to be mandatory in U.K. by 2010 U.K. lawmakers reach compromise on bill, extend controversial requirement for those renewing passports by two years. Will the U.S. follow?
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U.K. citizens will be forced to register for biometric ID cards when applying for a new passport within two years after members of parliament voted on Monday night to make the controversial scheme compulsory and to not put the costs under independent scrutiny&.MPs also voted, by a majority of 51, in favor of making it compulsory for citizens to register their personal and biometric details on the National Identity Register when applying for or renewing "designated" documents such as a passport despite warnings from Conservative Shadow Home Secretary David Davies that the U.K. is "sleepwalking towards a surveillance state."
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LOS ANGELES--In Memphis, Tenn., a small medical supply company called Luminetx has developed a new method of palm-reading that it hopes will rival fingerprinting or retinal scans as a way to perfectly identify individuals.
The technology is based on an infrared scan of the blood cells running through veins, which is then analyzed by a computer.
Luminetx originally developed the technique as a way to help doctors and nurses find veins in patients needing injections. But now, through a new division called Snowflake Technologies, the company is marketing it to banks, credit card companies and even homeland-security officials as a high-tech biometric identification tool.
"Our vein structures are completely different, especially when you look at the palm," said Luminetx Chief Executive Officer Jim Phillips, speaking at The Entertainment Gathering conference here Wednesday. "In a way, it's like looking at a bar code. We convert your veins to a bar code."
The drive for technology that can uniquely identify individuals has been given new urgency by the ongoing threat of terrorist attacks and the growing incidence of identity theft.
Basic biometric tools such as fingerprinting and retinal scans are now being widely installed at airports and other transit points. Biometrics experts in the United States and Europe are trying to develop standards that can help unify a fast-changing industry.
Some of the older tools have been found to be relatively easily bypassed, however. Researchers at Clarkson University have found that fingerprint scanners could be fooled with images lifted from Play-Doh, for example, or a model of a finger made with dental plaster.
Reproducing a three-dimensional model of a human vein system, complete with blood, could be more difficult, however.
Luminetx isn't the only group of researchers to pinpoint vein structure as a biometric breakthrough. Fujitsu is has already launched its own "Contactless Palm Vein Authentication" system and has sold more than 5,000 units in Japan.
To date, Luminetx has focused sales of its $25,000 machines to hospitals. The medical tool uses the infrared scanner to detect veins up to half an inch under the skin, analyzes the data in real time with a Pentium 4 computer, and then projects a digital image back onto the skin. The resulting ghostly greenish image looks a little like a cartoon X-ray, showing the precise locations of veins under the skin.
The company was granted a patent for the biometric applications of the technology last September.
Phillips said his company is still in the early stages of talking to financial and securities companies, and he would not talk about any negotiations taking place. He said he's sensitive to potential privacy concerns, but he believes the dangers of identity theft and other terrorism justify creating technology to help with the near-perfect identification of individuals.
"We're moving into a lot of different areas of society," Phillips said. "That's exciting, but a little bit frightening."
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Fred's Notes: The fact that this technology is required by a government, should be of major concern to all of us. This ministry and many others will soon be forced to face some hard decisions about world travel requirements and the acceptance of identification requirements.
Will the US follow this example? We just do not know! I was watching television a night or two ago and observed a national advertisement for a company who offers an implant service for pets. This seems good, because you can find Rover when he roves! How easily this technology will translate into finding lost or abducted children. I find it interesting that the blood is a prime factor in the biometric identification process. Could it be a coincidence that they use the palm of the hands? Just a thought! Jesus is the SOON COMING King! Prepare ye the way!
