Happy No-Ell 
to you and your families this Christmas and through the coming year!
May God bless you and keep you. May the light of His face shine graciously upon you and all that you set your hand towards throughout 2010.
–Mike
Dec
23
Joyeux “No Ell”
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Dec
10
Two or three weeks ago, I asked a youth group, “How many of you have ever done something you shouldn’t have done?” Every hand went up, including mine. This is a Big Deal. In Amos 5:21-22, God says that, because of Israel’s disobedience, "I hate, I despise your feast days, and I do not savor your sacred assemblies. 22 Though you offer Me burnt offerings and your grain offerings, I will not accept them, nor will I regard your fattened peace offerings." Disobedience separated Israel from God; indeed, it is the only thing that can separate us from God. Romans 3:23 tells us that "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Uh-oh. If sin (disobedience) can separate us from God, and all have sinned, then how do any of us have any hope of God’s love?
1 Samuel 13 tells a story about Saul, and how his disobedience causes him to lose favor with God. In verses 2-4Saul and his son Jonathan assemble 3,000 Hebrew soldiers, attack a Philistine outpost, and thus, Israel becomes "a stench to the Philistines." This is a great start for Saul — he knows the Lord is with him, so he fearlessly provokes the enemies of Israel. Unfortunately, it goes downhill from there. The Philistines respond to Saul’s attack by rallying three thousand chariots, six thousand charioteers, and soldiers as numerous as the sand on the seashore" to battle against Israel. In the face of this overwhelming army, the men of Israel are afraid and begin to desert, hiding "in caves and thickets, among the rocks, and in pits and cisterns" (verse 6). Rather than being a leader and standing in his faith, Saul begins to fear that he will no longer have an army with which to fight the Philistines. Instead of waiting for Samuel to join him, Saul gives in to his fear and offers a burnt offering to God on his own. When Samuel arrives, he rebukes Saul.
We all know the rest of the story — Saul is afraid of Goliath, David kills Goliath, David receives the favor of God and Israel, Saul becomes jealous of David then seeks to kill him, and eventually, David becomes king.
David has a rather spectacular failure of his own, however. In 2 Samuel 11 David spies Bathsheba, lusts after her, has an adulterous affair with her, and ends up having her husband Uriah — as well as other, good men of Israel — killed in battle. Danny Silk, of the Bethel Church in Redding, California, makes what I believe is a very insightful observation about this story. "This is not a blip on David’s character," he says in his "Culture of Honor" DVD series. David doesn’t just slip up in a moment of weakness. He crashes and burns big time, and takes a bunch of people down with him. But here is the most important part of the story: despite David’s monumental failure, God says David is "a man after His own heart."
In response to David’s sin, God sends Nathan to rebuke David in in chapter 12 (side note…in modern terms, "Chapter 11" is a term for a certain type of bankruptcy…David was certainly morally bankrupt in chapter 11 of 2 Samuel!) You see, when Nathan confronts David about his sin, David is pricked to his heart, confesses his guilt and repents. Then David said to Nathan, "I have sinned against the LORD." When confronted with his sin, Saul basically shrugs it off. David, however, recognizes that his sin has separated him from God, and desperately wants to restore that relationship, so he humbles himself before God and asks for forgiveness.
If we sin, but shrug the sin off as "no big deal", then God will turn away from us. If we sin, but ask God to forgive us, He will, over and over again if necessary. Do be mislead — this is not license to sin! Paul tackles this lie of the devil in Romans 6: "Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? 2God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?" God’s grace will relieve us of the burden and penalty for our sin, but that does not imply that we are free to sin, as long as we repent later. Paul says elsewhere, Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. 8The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life."
God loves us dearly, and desires that we would choose Him. However, He gives us the ability to choose between good and evil, between Him and sin. Because there is no way for us, in our own power, to restore the relationship we have with God, He sent Jesus to be a blood sacrifice on our behalf. All we have to do to receive this gift is to accept it. Repentance is the key that unlocks the gift of Jesus’ sacrifice.
Dec
03
I don’t normally write apologetics (logical arguments for the validity of faith, based upon reasoning) in this blog. The reason why is that I have found that apologetics is rarely all that productive. This experience is corroborated by Paul in his travels, as described in Acts. In Acts 17, Paul visited Thessalonica, Berea and Athens on his missionary journey. In these cities, Paul reasoned with them to "prove" that Jesus was the son of God and the Messiah. At the end of Acts 17, the scriptures say that "a few became followers of Paul and believed." However, in Corinth, Paul took a totally different approach.
In other words, by the time Paul reached Corinth, he had learned something: you can have some measure of success through apologetics, but to really reach people, you have to demonstrate the power of the Holy Spirit.
However, despite the fact that I greatly prefer demonstrating the power of the Holy Spirit by utilizing the gifts of prophecy and the gifts of healing to minister to others, I sometimes find myself engaging in intellectual arguments on-line. You see, as well as posting blog entries here on wordpress, I also hang out on slashdot and I used to hang out on digg. There are a lot of people on those web sites who are very educated, but who (I believe) have never really stopped to analyze the implications of what they believe.
This is neither an accusation nor a condemnation — merely an observation. I was the same way, for a long time. My awakening began in a philosophy class where we discussed the works of David Hume. In Hume’s philosophy, we can never be certain of what we know because we cannot actually observe the "causal interactions of physical objects." For example, just because I push a marble on a table top, and every time (so far) that I have done so, the marble begins rolling does not prove that my finger is what actually causes the marble to begin rolling. At best, it’s a really consistent coincidence. Since we can’t see the forces that cause physical objects in our universe to interact, we can’t really know that we know that we know that there is truly any such thing as "cause and effect". Once I began to wrap my head around this concept, I was forced to admit that Hume was right. In our daily life, it certainly appears that cause "A" will always result in effect "B". In fact, this model of reality that we have built upon this foundation is reliable enough that it really doesn’t matter in daily life whether or not it is truly accurate.
In all honesty, scientific reasoning based upon empirical evidence works pretty well, overall. I drive a car because I trust the science that lead to its invention. Science lead to the development of the laptop computer I am using to draft this blog entry and to the Internet upon which it will be posted. Science developed the medications I take. But as I began to analyze Hume’s philosophy, I had to agree that, in the end, we all believe things even though we can never be absolutely, positively certain that they are true. Despite this fact, for the last 2000 years, we have elevated the mind, logic and reason to the point that all we believe in is what we can see, touch and sense.
However, as my pastor, Pat Hadley, likes to say, "the mind and logic was never meant to be in the driver’s seat." This "all logic, no faith" attitude is overwhelmingly prevalent on sites like slashdot, where relatively intelligent, educated people discuss ideas. It is much like the description of Athens in Acts 17: All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas." Don’t get me wrong — I, too, love to discuss ideas. It’s one of the reasons I hang out on slashdot and write this blog. However, despite the above-average overall intelligence of people on slashdot, they are blinded by a faith that they don’t even know they possess. As Hume explained, we can never truly understand the interactions between physical objects. Therefore, the conclusions we draw from the scientific method (observe, hypothesize, test, analyze, rinse, repeat) will always be inferences — best guesses, if you will.
This is something most people in the Western World are not willing to accept. Most people are not willing to accept that the much vaunted scientific method, for all its accomplishments, ultimately rests upon faith that interactions of cause and effect really have anything to do with each other. It ultimately rests upon the faith that our observations of the physical world around us are depictions of reality. This was a problem that Renee Descartes’ wrestled with in his philosophy, which began with the question, "how do I know that I even exist?". Once Descartes was satisfied with his own existence, he began to work outwards from there — how do I know that the things I believe that I have experienced were real and not just a dream? How do I know that my senses are not deceiving me?
This is a problem because our Western way of thinking teaches us that anything we can prove can be trusted, but anything that requires faith is without value. In fact, a quote I recently saw on my Google homepage says exactly that: "Faith is a cop-out. If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can’t be taken on its own merits." Needless to say, I strongly disagree with this sentiment — faith is neither a cop-out, nor a belief in something that is unable to stand on it’s own merits. It is only 2000+ years of brainwashing in the Greek tradition that tells us that only those things that we can see can be believed.
When debating about faith vs. science on-line, I often pose the question, "why is it that you will readily accept my testimony that I have a wife, a daughter, a mother, a father, siblings, etc., but you are simply unable to accept my testimony that I also have a relationship with Father God?" Someone sitting at a computer 2500 miles away in California or Hawaii is no more able to see my mother, my wife, my daughter or my brothers than they are able to see God. But they have little or no problem accepting my claim at face value that these people in my life exist. My father passed away three years ago, so no one on earth can see him now, but that does not prevent anyone from believing that my father was a real man who walked on the earth and interacted with me. If my testimony of my family can be believed, why then is it so difficult for people to accept my testimony that I have also discovered a Father in heaven? If I was the only person to claim such a thing, then perhaps I could understand, but I am not, not by any means.
One criticism atheists often have with Christianity is that they say there is no proof, outside of the Bible itself, that any of the things that are documented there ever happened. This betrays a singular lack of understanding of the history of the Bible. According to wiktionary, the very word "Bible" means "collection of books". The Bible itself is compilation of books written by several authors. The New Testament is a the written account of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, James, Paul, Peter, Jude, arguably Silas and Timothy. That alone is several sources. It wasn’t until about 400 A.D. (I refuse to use the newspeak "C.E." notation) that the Catholic Church consolidated the texts that we now recognize as the Bible into a single text. Claiming the Bible is a single source is every bit erroneous as someone refusing to accept the work of modern physicists such as Einstein, Hawkings and Bohr because this person only read a single physics textbook that contained a compilation of the work of these exceptional men. Furthermore, since the time of Jesus, untold others, such as St. Francis of Assisi or Augustine, have documented "religious experiences" in their writings. Many of these experiences were witnessed by others. In (relatively) modern times, stories from the Welsh revival, the Azusa Street revival, the Vineyard revival in Ontario, Canada, the Lakeland, FL revival, Rolland and Heidi Baker, and the Bethel Church in Redding, California and the multitude of stories of the miraculous documented on the DVD Finger of God also bear witness to the fact that there is more to reality than the physical world around us.
What I find most interesting is that the same people who denigrate men and women of faith as being "dogmatic", "religious nutjobs" and "intellectually dishonest" (I have been called all of these things) are themselves being every bit as dogmatic, intellectually dishonest and close-minded as they accuse contemporary Christians of being. I challenged one such unbeliever to put up or shut up. "You claim to revere the scientific method," I posted on-line. "Conduct an experiment, then. Spend one week earnestly seeking after God. Pray morning and night that He reveal Himself to you. Spend a few hours reading the Bible and seeing what it really says. If, after one week of sincerely searching for the truth, nothing happens, then you have lost nothing but a few hours of your time, but you will have debunked my argument that God is really there, waiting for those who seek Him. However, if after one week, God starts working in your heart, then you will have to decide whether you wish to ignore his call on your life or if you are willing to admit that perhaps you were wrong." The result of my challenge? The Digg "bury brigade" moderated my post into oblivion. No one ever bothered to post that they had either succeeded or failed — or even tried — to prove me wrong. That is intellectual dishonesty — "I am unwilling to even challenge my beliefs, because I already know that I am right."
One person on-line even charged that I was doing the same thing. "What would it take to convince you that you are wrong?" he wrote. I then described my own journey from Christian to atheist at 15 and back to Christian between the ages of 21 and 34. His response was, "Then you aren’t really seeking the truth; you are just being intellectually dishonest." Really? Examining both sides of the issue, trying them both out, testing my faith by experimenting with the gifts of the Spirit (see 1 Corinthians 12 for a discussion of spiritual gifts) is being intellectually dishonest? Praying for God to describe someone that needs prayer, then going into the shopping centers in town to find this person, then walking up to him when I found him and offering to pray for him, a complete stranger, in the middle of a grocery store, is not being willing to test whether or not my beliefs are real?
In the end, Paul was right. If you really want to convince someone that God is real, and that He absolutely loves to shower His love upon His people, you can only do it by demonstrating the power of the Holy Spirit. This was what happened on the Day of Pentecost described in Acts 2 — "When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. 2Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. 4All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them…and about three thousand were added to their number that day." It is not with words of wisdom or human understanding that the hardened heart can be made humble, but rather through the power of the Holy Spirit.
If you have come to this web page and are not a believer in God or Jesus or the Holy Spirit, then I offer the same challenge to you that I offered to the Digg user — seek God, pray, and read the Bible for a week. I guarantee He will show up, if you are honestly looking for Him. If He doesn’t, then you can write me off as a religious nutjob, and I won’t hold it against you. If you are already a believer, then may God bless your ministry, and may you ever walk in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Nov
24
This morning, as I often do, I opened the Bible at random and began reading. This time, I happened to turn to Luke chapter 1, and began reading about the birth of John the Baptist. Towards the end of the chapter, John’s father, Zechariah, begins to prophesy over him:
Even though I have read Luke chapter 1 many, many times before, Zechariah’s words leapt out at me this morning as I read them. This is the good news that is the Gospel — forgiveness brings deliverance! So many of our friends and neighbors are already living in Hell, figuratively speaking, because they labor under bitterness or guilt and shame, or both. They are bitter towards others, they are bitter towards themselves…and none of it has to be, because Jesus the Messiah brought deliverance for us by His death on the cross and subsequent resurrection!
Even though Zechariah was prophesying over his son, when I read his prophecy this morning, I was struck with a sense that it was meant every bit as much for us today as it was for John at his birth. We who trust in Jesus are also called to "go before the Lord and prepare His way" (verse 76). We are also commissioned to "…[spread] the knowledge…that deliverance comes by having sins forgiven…" (verse 77) and by forgiving others for the ways they have offended us. This is, in fact, exactly what Jesus commanded in the Great Commission: "Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations…" We are to go into the world, bringing the Good News of forgiveness and deliverance to all the nations. We are to set free those who have been bound in living hell by shame and guilt. We are to break the chains of oppression with which the enemy has shackled our brothers and sisters.
This word was especially powerful to me because, as I write this, I am preparing for a mission trip in the very near future. My pastor asked me (and a few others) to go with him to teach on this very topic to a group of pastors and Christian school teachers in a very oppressed and fearful land. They desperately need forgiveness and deliverance. Therefore, I desperately need to fore-arm myself with God’s word to bring to them. In a sense, this word, given over 2000 years ago to a man on the other side of the world, is also a commission to me. Go and prepare the way for God’s healing work. Teach these pastors and school teachers that forgiveness brings deliverance. Begin creating an environment for them where the ministry of the Holy Spirit can heal decades of wounds.
Father God, may Your word fill me and prepare me for the task You have appointed to me. May Your healing heart be manifested in my every word and action. May the Holy Spirit, living in me, bring freedom and release to Your beloved children. Amen.
Note: Verse 77 is taken from David H. Stern’s Complete Jewish Bible rather than NLT, which is what I used to quote the rest of the passage, because none of the translations available at Bible Gateway quite captured the feeling that Stern brings to that verse.
Oct
28
While taking philosophy in college, I had a professor pose the question, “Is God good because the things He tells us to do are good, or are the things God tells us to do good because God is good?” Basically, the professor was asking if goodness was a quality that God possessed (does goodness exist in and of itself) or is goodness defined by God Himself (are other things good because they are like God)? To explain the question, he asked, “What if God told you to destroy an entire race of people — to commit genocide? Would that command still be good? If so, would it be good because God commanded it?” The professor thought he was speaking hypothetically — he thought he was asking, “Suppose God asked you to do something completely abhorrent. Would the command still be good? Would God still be good?”
Unfortunately, the professor apparently was not familiar with the Bible, because this is not a hypothetical question. God commanded the Israelites to do exactly that in Deuteronomy 20:16-18:
…in the cities of the nations the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. 17 Completely destroy them—the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites—as the LORD your God has commanded you. 18 Otherwise, they will teach you to follow all the detestable things they do in worshiping their gods, and you will sin against the LORD your God.
This passage, and others like it, have troubled me for a long time. As I have said over and over again on this blog, I believe God is always, always, always good. He cannot be otherwise; it would be contrary to His very nature. As James writes, "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.". But this leads to an apparant contradiction. If God is always good, how could He command the Israelites to utterly destroy entire nations of people — men, women, children, even babies — when they moved into the Promised Land? What justice — what goodness — is there in slaughtering the defenseless? How does that picture reconcile with a belief in an "always good, always loving" God?
The answer, I believe, is that God knew what the outcome of not following His command would be. Judges 2:1-3 tells that God rebuked the Israelites for failing to follow His directive:
The angel of the LORD…said, "I brought you up out of Egypt and led you into the land that I swore to give to your forefathers. I said, ‘I will never break my covenant with you, 2 and you shall not make a covenant with the people of this land, but you shall break down their altars.’ Yet you have disobeyed me. Why have you done this? 3 Now therefore I tell you that I will not drive them out before you; they will be thorns in your sides and their gods will be a snare to you."
If you read the later history of Israel in 1st and 2nd Kings, you will see that this is exactly what happened. Even Solomon strayed, worshipping Ashtoreth, Molech, and Chemosh, gods of the people that Israel failed to drive out of Canaan.
This may not be a completely satisfactory answer to the question of God’s goodness — and perhaps at a later date, I will explore that answer in greater detail — but it is good enough for what I would like to discuss right now. You see, the Torah is rich in detail and foreshadowing, and this story is no exception. Under the Old Covenant, the descendants of Abraham had a promise from God for a land of their own. Under the New Covenant, we have the same thing…only our Promised Land is our heart.
Just as the inhabitants of Canaan drew Israel away from their Covenant relationship with God, the inhabitants of our heart — our lusts, our desires, our sinful nature — want to draw us away from our Covenant relationship with God. Furthermore, just as the Israelites were commanded to utterly destroy the inhabitants of Canaan so that they (the Israelites) might remain pure and holy, we are commanded to utterly destroy the old, sinful nature that was in our hearts before we became followers of Jesus so that we might remain pure and holy. Colossians 3 tells us to "Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry," and Ephesians 4 tells us, "…put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness." If we do not completely root out all of these "inhabitants" of our old heart, we, like the Israelites, will find ourselves chasing after things that are not of God.
God wants all of our heart; He will not settle for 99% of it. Therefore, I can give no quarter to even a root of evil in my heart. As someone said to me when I was still a teenager, "If you are trying to find out how close you can get to sin before crossing over the line, you’ve already crossed it."
Rather, we MUST pray like David did: "Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my…thoughts. 24 Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life."
Sep
28
One thing I often hear people say is that the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament seem so opposite to each other. In the Old Testament is all of the prophets prophesying doom and judgment upon people, while in the New Testament, you have Jesus teaching mercy and forgiveness. How can the harsh, judgmental God in the Torah be the same God that we as Christians, under the New Covenant, worship today?
The answer is found in Ezekial 33:10-11:
Son of man, say to the house of Israel, ‘This is what you are saying: “Our offenses and sins weigh us down, and we are wasting away because of [a] them. How then can we live?” ‘ 11 Say to them, ‘As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, O house of Israel?’
The heart of God is not to punish, destroy or kill. The heart of God is to redeem, to save and restore life. Why do you think God sent the Old Testament prophets? God wasn’t sitting in Heaven looking down on sinful man and cackling with glee because He was about to destroy nations over and over again. God was sending warning after warning — "Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; so hear the word I speak and give them warning from me." (Ezekial 3:17). This is also shown in Matthew 23:37, when Jesus says, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing." Despite her (our) many sins, Jesus (God) still wants to gather us under His protection. This is not the heart of a vengeful, wrathful God — this is the heart of a Father who wants His children to love Him and to live under His protection.
We have been told a lie by Satan, and we have believed it. God is not against us; He is for us and jealous for us. He is patient and long-suffering towards us, and when we fall, He will be there to pick us up again…if we will only let Him.
Aug
27
I ran across an interesting quote today…:
The stream of human knowledge is impartially heading towards a non-mechanical reality. The universe begins to look more like a great thought than a great machine. –Sir John Jeans
…which immediately reminded me of the account of the creation in Genesis, when with a word, God breathed the universe into being. When I read this quote, I found a sense of peace settle over me — "All is well; your existence is in the thoughts of Jehovah." Whether you choose to take that literally (I exist only in the thoughts of Jehovah) or figuratively (Jehovah is thinking of me), it is immensely comforting.
Aug
12
I received an e-mail from my uncle today, describing an event where a Christian with a prison ministry is confronted by Muslims in the prison who are trying to stop him from preaching Christianity. The e-mail is very interesting, and, although I would like to, I am not going to post it here because I do not wish to infringe upon the original author’s copyright on his work.
However, I will touch upon some of the salient points from the e-mail. First, the author describes what sounds like a very successful prison ministry — even in physical bondage, i.e., jail, hearts are being set free from sin. That’s awesome! Second, now that the ministry is becoming successful, Satan has begun to interfere with this man’s — and God’s — work in the prison. The author describes how, being in a room in the prison with several Muslims who are attempting to disrupt the Christian Bible study and worship service, he faced fear, both for the situation he experienced and for the future:
At that point some of the Muslims came over to me and the other elders and started calling us Satan worshippers, white pigs and evil. They vowed to stop our preaching and teaching of Jesus…I believe that If it were not for the presence of the guard it would have become very violent, and possibly deadly. It will not surprise me that our continued visits will eventually lead to our being attacked and harmed…Our guard was a female about the age of 50, and it is my firm belief that if those men had wanted to, they could have harmed or even killed us yesterday before she could have received the help needed to squelch the attacks. It is my conviction that yesterday was a glimpse of the future for all Christians in America. I also believe that any faith that is not deeply rooted in Jesus will not survive the future when the attacks come.
I have a couple of thoughts about this. First, let me say that, in my experience, if you are experiencing opposition in your work for God, be encouraged. Satan only attacks those who are a *THREAT* to him. As my wife and I have become more active in our ministries, we have found the spiritual attacks on us have really ramped up. Five years ago, things were pretty mellow. Now…well, by the end of last week, I was feeling pretty spiritually beat up. Anyway…having said that, let me get a little more controversial
The church that my wife and I have been attending teaches some things that I believe are true but that I think have escaped most Christians. The New Testament records several times and in several ways that we (the Church) are the body of Christ, and that Jesus is the head of the Church. Think about that for a second…what is the purpose of the head and of the body? The head provides direction and leadership, and the body carries out the work, right? Okay, nothing controversial there. The Bible also tells us that all dominion and authority has been given to Jesus and that his enemies have been placed *under his feet*…which are part of the body, no? Seems to me that this implies that Jesus’ enemies have been placed under the feet of His body, which we’ve already agreed is us! Okay, that’s a bit of a stretch, so if you don’t agree with that connection, I understand. Let’s take another tack.
John 14:12-14 says “I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.” If you believe that, and take it to mean exactly what Jesus spoke, He is giving us the power to work miracles and take authority over the enemy! Whoa!!!
2 Timothy 1:7 also says “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” There are two things important in this passage. First, Wellspring (the church my wife and I are going to now) teaches that that is exactly right — fear is a spirit of Satan meant to cripple us with intimidation and keep us from doing God’s work. What the man in the prison ministry described sounds *exactly* like a spirit of fear and intimidation to me. The second thing is that, rather than a spirit of fear, God has given us a spirit of POWER. It is power that is softened (i.e., made gentle, but no less potent!) by love and reigned in by discipline (in other translations) or a sound mind (in NKJV, which I quoted from). Elsewhere in the New Testament, it says that “greater is He [the Holy Spirit, i.e., God] that is in me than that which is in the world [i.e., Satan]“. But knowing that God has given you power and that God is greater than the enemy is why we need not fear.
Now for the practical application…
At Wellspring, we are taught that when an evil spirit, for example a spirit of fear and intimidation, manifests itself, such as when these Muslims attempted to disrupt and interfere with the Christian Bible study, *we don’t have to put up with it*!!! What happened to Paul and Silas in Acts 16?
One day as we were going down to the place of prayer, we met a demon-possessed slave girl. She was a fortune-teller who earned a lot of money for her masters. She followed Paul and the rest of us, shouting, “These men are servants of the Most High God, and they have come to tell you how to be saved.”
This went on day after day until Paul got so exasperated that he turned and said to the demon within her, “I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And instantly it left her.
Paul and Silas were able to silence the unclean spirit in the woman because they were filled with the Holy Spirit and had faith that God would uphold His promises. We can do it too; in fact, *I have* and *it worked.* The man who started Wellspring Ministries tells how he has often been threatened and ridiculed, but commanded the spirits of fear and intimidation to cease…and they did. When the enemy tries to discourage us from our work our reply should be, “In the name of Jesus Christ, I command you (spirit of fear, intimidation, oppression, etc.) to be silent and depart.”
So is this, as the author of the e-mail that was forwarded to me claims, really the future of Christianity in America? Yes, and no. If we are active in God’s work, I believe Satan will do his best to intimidate us, and he will use other human beings — Muslims, athiests and, for that matter, possibly even other “Christians” who are threatened by those who are on fire for God — to do so. Does that mean that Christians are looking at a grim, bleak future of persecution? Not if we really put on the armor of God and believe what He tells us to do in His word!
Earlier in this post, I commented that "…by the end of last week, I was feeling pretty spiritually beat up." I want to stress that, while I felt like I had been engaged in some pretty heavy fighting and that I definitely took some blows, I *also* felt like I gave at least as good as I got. It was a rough week, but I emerged from that week VICTORIOUS! I was not a victim, and I was not defeated. I believe that is what God desires and expects from all who call themselves Christians — nothing less than victory! As a kid, I used to sing the hymn "Victory in Jesus" in church. Isn’t it ironic that we sing about "Victory in Jesus" in our worship services, but live, act and talk like we expect suffering and persecution? Is it just me, or is there a disconnect here?!?!
I recommend the book “Victorious Eschatology” by Harold Eberle and Martin Trench for those, like me, who are tired of the victim’s mindset. I haven’t read the whole book yet, but I’ve read pieces of it. The authors do a neat analysis of the point of view that “things are bad and are only going to get worse”, which I really enjoyed. I don’t know about you, but I personally feel much more empowered when I believe that things are going to get better — and that I can play a part in making it happen!
Jul
24
How often have we said, "It is God’s will," or "It was an act of God," when tragedy strikes? Remember…Pat Robertson, I think it was…saying that Hurricane Katrina was God’s punishment on the United States for its sinful ways? Or have you ever heard someone say that the kind, loving God of the New Testament seems to be a totally different personality than the harsh, wrathful God of the Old Testament? I really don’t think that’s the case. The Bible tells us that God is good; God is love.
Check out this link — the author explains God’s goodness as written in the Bible better than I can.
Jul
22
Okay, you’ve gotta see this:
Now that’s what I’m talking about! This is what Christianity is supposed to look like! So, if that’s what the church is supposed to look like, then why doesn’t it?
I was brought up in a church that taught that miracles were for the time when Jesus and the Apostles walked the earth. I was always taught that miracles didn’t happen anymore. Unfortunately, this is pretty common, even in so-called "spirit-filled" churches. Father God, forgive us! How did we forget what Jesus did and said?!?! Heal the sick…and tell them, ‘The kingdom of God is near you.’"
One of Satan’s favorite tactics is to convince us that we are powerless, that we cannot oppose him, that miracles have ceased and God no longer provides for His people. If the church doesn’t believe they they have the power and authority to destroy the works of Satan, then who will oppose him? Have you ever felt that small, quiet voice whispering to your spirit, "C’mon, just go for it. I know you’ve got what it takes! Just take a step in faith!"? When you feel the faith begin to well up inside you, what happens next? As soon as faith begins building up in my soul, I start hearing another voice whispering to me, "What do you think you are doing? What if it doesn’t work? What if you witness to this person and nothing happens? They are going to think you are nuts! Besides, they don’t want to be bothered by some religious wacko…" and on it goes. Just like in the cartoons I watched as a kid, there’s an angel on one shoulder encouraging me to be like Jesus, and a devil on the other, reminding me of my past failures and playing on my fears.
Fortunately, however, I’ve got a rebellious streak in me that I have long since learned to channel in a good way. When I was in ninth grade, I had a biology teacher who…well, he was kind of a jerk. One day in class, the teacher asked us to get out our textbooks. I had lost my book a day or two before, so I didn’t have my book in class. Oops. That earned me a lunch detention. During detention, the instructor asked how I studied for tests without the textbook. Truth was, I really didn’t study much in high school — I didn’t need to. Sure, I could have moved from a B-average to an A-average with a little more bookwork, but I’ve always had a practical approach to things. At that time, I didn’t think it was worth the extra effort to get a slightly better grade (I’ll cover that topic in another post some time…), so I rarely studied for tests. So, I said, "Usually, I don’t. However, if I need to, I use the notes from class." My biology teacher, however, was singularly unimpressed with that answer. "Yeah, and your grades reflect that," he said. First, that was pure bovine scatology. If I was a solid "D" student, that answer might have been warranted, but you’re going to try to slam me for earning A’s and B’s in your class?!?! Like I said, he was kind of a jerk ("Father God, I purpose and choose to forgive Mr. Maier…." lol). Second, the whole point behind the answer he gave me was to sting my ego. Nine times out of ten, that’s a really poor way to motivate people. It rarely is a good idea to rag on people if you want them to do better. In my experience, mean-spirited criticism almost always only serves to beat people down.
I happen to be that tenth time, however.
When my biology teacher lobbed that smart answer back at me, I thought to myself, "Oh, really? Wanna bet?!?!" I thought a few other things too, but I won’t repeat them here In any case, I ended up with an "A" in biology that semester…and I still didn’t crack the textbook at home except to do homework.
The trick is to take this attitude and apply it to spiritual matters. When Satan tells me, "You can’t do that — you aren’t smart (or strong or spiritual or faithful….) enough to oppose me!", something in my soul goes, "Yeah, whatever…watch me!" When he tries to play on my fears, I say, "Are you seriously trying to scare me? Looks to me like you’re scared of me!"
Hebrews 10:12-14 says, "But our High Priest offered himself to God as a single sacrifice for sins, good for all time. Then he sat down in the place of honor at God’s right hand. 13 There he waits until his enemies are humbled and made a footstool under his feet. 14 For by that one offering he forever made perfect those who are being made holy." Even better, Jesus, "our High Priest", has given us authority and power over Satan and his demons: "Look, I have given you authority over all the power of the enemy, and you can walk among snakes and scorpions and crush them. Nothing will injure you." (Luke 10:19) Therefore, the only power Satan has over us is what we give to him by coming into agreement with his accusations or by giving in to fear. "You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world." (1 John 4:4)
So, when Satan tries to intimidate you, get your hackles up and reply, "Oh, no you dih-n’t!"
