Awakenings

Book Review - I am a Follower: The Way, Truth, and Life of Following Jesus

2012-01-27T11:12:00.000-08:00

More and more books are coming out on this subject. Sweet's focus is mostly off the church and on Jesus. But like other authors, he writes from a scholarly, hypothetical point of view. There is very little story here. Personally, I am looking for someone who has been there and can write about the experience. While I understand that it's not all about the experience, it is about Jesus, readers like me want the story of the journey. Sweet's journey so far is probably on a good track, but possibly far above the heads of the average reader looking to follow this path. The book is full of metaphor, Latin, and Greek. These are tough to follow. But Jesus is simple to follow. As a thinker, I enjoyed Sweet's endeavor. But as a fellow follower, the lack of story left me on a path that feels deserted.

Book Review - The Grace Effect: How the Power of One Life Can Reverse the Corruption of Unbelief

2011-12-18T12:58:00.000-08:00

Larry Alex Taunton wrote a true story of his experiences endured while adopting Sasha, a young girl from the Ukraine. It is a story of the battle between Christians and atheists. It is a story of the power of grace and unbelief. It is a story of the power of God in the face of what seems humanly impossible - a human system designed to eliminate God (any god), the common decency of humanity, and hope of any sort through the utter corruption of the system, the mind, and the pursuit of no god.

Mr. Taunton's explanations of that system and his experiences within it are exhausting. I should know because I endured it as well before the wall came down. His descriptions are accurate. I was a young Christian then and swore at the end I would never go back. Mr. Taunton never says that, but he leaves the reader feeling that way. Such a feeling is counter to the point of the book however. What if Sasha never got out? Would she still have hope? Could God still save her?

I heard of two men who met on the street in former Czechoslovakia. One was an American, the other a Czech. Through conversation they learned they were both Christians. The Czech was shocked and disbelieving. He said to the American, "How can you be a Christian? You have everything."

In the former Eastern countries behind the Iron Curtain they indeed had very little. According to Mr. Taunton, not much has changed. But can the grace of God still penetrate the Iron Curtain now turned paper? Absolutely. This same American man is a good friend of mine. He knows countless Christians from behind the former wall. He knows their stories. All are filled with grace despite the hopelessness of the situations.

I highly recommend reading this book. The story is real. But not like our God is real. Do you want to adopt from the Ukraine? Read this book so you know what you will face. The grace of God is the unknown part that you will also face. It will take you through for His glory. Don't hesitate.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Taking Half a Break

2011-11-03T16:58:00.000-07:00

I'm taking a break from this blog for a while so I can concentrate on finishing my historical novel. You may observe its progress on my other blog at Falkenstein.

"with" is with it

2011-10-03T14:01:00.000-07:00

Not only is Skye Jethani's "with" and excellent technical analysis of contemporary Christian life, it is also one of the few books daring to pinpoint the single issue which creates a problem in every Christian life. Sin. He effectively deals with the problem in each chapter. Where he leaves us wanting is the conclusion. What does the real Christian life look like without sin? He throws in a few ideas. But I sense like many of us, he is still searching. I hope the answer will show up in a sequel. The adjective approach to the various lives of Christians is an excellent one and should be taught to new and old believers alike.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

In Fact, It's All Dung

2011-06-30T08:04:00.000-07:00

It's hard to draw near to God, talk to Him, and hear Him, when there is so much stuff in the way. God wants us to know Him, know His will, and do it. This starts with salvation, continues with a life of humility and repentance, and thrives in worship.

God gives us a simple example to follow in Philippians 3:8-11. "Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith: That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death; If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead."

I suppose there are things that, like Paul, I could boast about. What things do you have? Shall we get into a contest to see who has the best credentials? I used to do that in the online forums. We'd get into Scriptural debates that started out cordial with a point of view. Then we would defend our positions with Scripture. If one side didn't give, then things got nasty. Someone would then belittle the other by listing their credentials and demanding those of the other. I never went that far. The best I can throw into the ring is a two-year Bible degree.

But I have something more. I know Jesus. He knows me. We spend a lot of time together. I learn at His feet through the teaching of the Holy Spirit. Everything else is dung.

At the end of the argument, do you know Jesus? Do you know His will? If suspect you'll find out as I did that these online debates are not part of His will. In fact, God tells us to stay away from them entirely. Imagine two sides arguing a spiritual point and using God's Word as the weapon of choice. Is that right division?

I am learning to abandon all and keep it that way. Life is much simpler. The rest is dung. I don't know about you but I find dung offensive. But Jesus is sweet.

It's Not Enough

2011-06-27T06:12:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I listened to a sermon by Mark S. Case, "God's People are not Prepared". For those of you who regularly read this blog and wonder where I have been, these messages are for you. Case's sermon is along the same lines as my blog message - wake up, be ready. As he says, it is not enough just to be saved and then go on living the so-called Christian life as we know it.

Pastors spend their entire careers teaching and preaching (correctly) the Word of God. But they may spend only a fraction of that time talking about what really matters most. We are in the last days. There are very specific things that we should be doing now. These are the things that we should know. These are the things that should be taught. In light of the fact of this present dispensation, spending much time teaching about other things seems like time not well spent.

The time is short. Life is short. Jesus may come at any moment. If He tarries, that does not mean we should fill in the time with other material. No. There are far too many souls at stake. And first I wish to address the souls who already believe themselves to be saved Christians.

No longer will I address this matter in terms of what you should be doing. That word "should" is too weak. It is evasive. It makes what I say sound like a suggestion. It makes what God says for these last days to sound like an option. Nothing could be further from the truth. What I say next is God's command. You may call me a fool but....

You know with what strong words I persuaded you in former times on this blog. I was zealous for God and His Church. And then, for a period of about a year, I have fallen away. It was all according to God's plan for me, then He might show me, and I in turn you, His commands for these last days.

They are in fact no different than what I have told you all along. But first I went through this period of sin to learn something important. The truth.

God says that Jesus came to save us from our sins, to deliver us from sin. Did He do that for you? Think a moment on the absoluteness of death. God says that the blood of His Son washed away all sin for all men for all time. His death was sufficient and never to be repeated. God says that we, His saved from sin children, identify with that death in that we are crucified with Christ, nevertheless we live by the faith of the Son of God in us.

The death in us is death to sin. The life in us is the righteousness and holiness of God whereby He calls us adopted sons and daughters in Jesus. While this death and life were guaranteed by a one-time Calvary, it is not enough that we sit idle and believe that we remain in this proper life and death state with God. There is a responsibility we must carry out moment by moment in reality.

God says we are to reckon ourselves dead indeed unto sin. We are to awake unto righteousness and sin not. Listen carefully now. This means that we are to live a life free from sin in Jesus because he saved us from our sins and delivered us from our sin. He gave us the power through Him to live. It didn't just happen at the moment of our salvation; it must be worked out constantly in life.

In other words, stop sinning. Why? Because you can. God commanded it, gave you the power to do it, and ultimately, He receives the glory from it. There is no glory in a Christian who sins.

Read through the latter epistles of Paul and you see this theme over and over to Timothy, the Thessalonians, the Hebrews. In the last days even Christians will fall away, teach false doctrine, and lead many astray. That's right. The evil in these last days will be more profound on the lips and actions of saved people than it is from the world. Christians can and will be wicked, evil, deceptive, deceived, and wretched.

I know. I went through it for a year just so God could convince me. But it is all there in black and white for you to read in His Word.

The only salvation is Jesus. It was good enough the moment He saved you. It is good enough for each moment of your life. But are you alive? Are you free? Are you holy and righteous? Are you?

This is not about whether you sin or not. Of course you do. But you can stop. And when you go through with it, the remedy is the same. The blood of Jesus. Confess, forsake, repent. Judgment will begin in the Church. I know the horrors of that judgment for a year of my time. That will be wood, hay, stubble, dead works.

Hear the words of life. God saved you from your sins now to be free now to glorify Him now. The instant you sin again after salvation all but your salvation is lost. God is merciful and gracious in His goodness to keep calling you to repent. But that is entirely up to you.

The Sun Shines Brightly on The Muir House

2011-06-26T07:12:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading Mary DeMuth's latest novel, The Muir House. She uses the symbol of the sun, almost always golden and dancing, as a metaphor of hope, even in the darkest moments. For me, the sun shone brightly thoughout the entire read. It was a five-star brightness sun.

This is the first time I have ever read a book in this genre. Kinda strange since I secretly love chick flicks (even if my wife isn't watching with me). But The Muir House is not just a chick book. It is for anybody who is searching for life, for hope, for dreams. They are always closer than we think.

I "met" Mary through Facebook and frequent her blog and newsletter. The themes there are strong in The Muir House. That's what makes this novel so good. It's personal. That was the power that came through in the words. The power of the sun came through Mary's words because they are real to her. And that's what made it real to me. Over and over I read in her blog comments about how real her words are, how the readers can identify with them through personal experience. I think you'll find yourself and some reality in The Muir House.

Now, I will pass it on first to my wife, and from there, who knows. Hopes and dreams and prayers will find the next reader who needs a little sunshine in their lives.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

Money Saving Secrets

2011-06-23T13:52:00.000-07:00

Book Review

Money Secrets of the Amish: Finding True Abundance in Simplicity, Sharing, and Saving, Craker, Lorilee, Thomas Nelson, 2011

I live in the most densely-populated portion of the United States. One hour east of Philadelphia, two hours south of New York City, and three hours north of our Capital. Less than two hours west is Lancaster County, PA, homestead of one of our nation’s largest Amish communities. If ever one was trapped in between irrational exhuberance and old-world abundance, that would be me. You can read the same thrifty tips in the stuffy Wall Street Journal as Craker wrote in her humorous book. But Craker’s take is personal. And that’s what makes the difference. You can live nearby, read all about it, and truly believe these are great ideas – for someone else. Or, like Craker, you can take the time to become a true doer by taking a short drive across the river and spending some time with the Amish, getting to know them personally, blending into their community, and thereby coming away with a trans-cultural union that will yield the simplicity, sharing, and saving that Craker knows and writes about. It’s not just about the money and Craker gets the point across in fun, personal, and enticing ways. Enticing enough to make this densely populated reader encourage his family and other readers to give up and give in to a lifestyle not driven by driving, bugged by plodding buggies, or longing for good schmeck instead of show.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

The Max is the Minimum

2011-05-20T15:24:00.000-07:00

Unlike my last review of Alton Gansky's "Conversations With God", Max Lucado's "Max on Life: Answers and Insights to Your Most Important Questions" promised max only delivered the minimum. A cardinal rule was broken by using multiple translations to find the one which fit the best to make a point. Some Scriptures were unrecognizable even though the book, chapter, and verse were provided.

The book also tends heavily towards the God is love side though at times judgment in balance is mentioned. While this book might make you feel good, it may not necessarily make you better.

This is the very first book I have ever read by Max Lucado. I have known about him for years as a storyteller. Perhaps his fiction is better than his reality. I'll give it a try. In the meantime, I only give this book two stars.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

Shogun'a Confuse You

2011-05-08T09:08:00.000-07:00

I remember watching Shogun years ago, just after God saved me. I wondered why there was so much tension between the Jesuits and the Protestants who came to Japan. Then last week I read many of the posts from Christians regarding the killing of Osama bin Laden. Again that tension was there. It caused me to wonder why.

There was a period of time when I spent hours on the Christian forums, arguing back and forth about various doctrinal issues. Then one day I just stopped, tired of it all. It just felt like carnal weapons and fleshy warfare. If indeed the folks on the other side were Christians, then why were we fighting one another?

I saw godly people on both sides line up with valid Scriptures to defend their positions. How could we both be right? How could we both be wrong?

If you grew up in the sixties and seventies like I did, you remember well the frequent wars in Northern Ireland. Christians willing to go to their deaths in order to hold onto their faiths.

Or, as some have said, are we really Christians at all if we fight this way among ourselves?

Harper Lee wrote in "To Kill a Mockingbird" that the Bible in the hands of some men is more dangerous than a bottle of whiskey. I always think of that quote when I see these fights. We use the Bible as a weapon to beat one another into submission, to believe our beliefs, or else. Men will kill and be killed, certain they are righteous and right.

I no longer know what to think.

I followed the Internet Monk for a few years then recently gave up. They could not answer the question of what to do with the law even though they vehemently fight it in favor of grace. I dropped them not because of their position on grace, but because they fight to keep it, unwilling or unable to comment on the law.

I prefer to listen to "hellfire and brimstone" preachers like those found on sermonindex. I listened to a message by Ray Comfort this week called "Hell's Best Kept Secret". It made all the warfare between us Christians pale in comparison to its simple message. It was the gospel. And really, there is nothing else that matters.

At least that's what I think right now. What are your thoughts about this tough spot I'm in? Do you also wonder about what you really believe?

Man's Petty Kingdom

2011-04-28T14:14:00.000-07:00

I had to blog this excerpt from Art Katz's sermon as heard on sermonindex.org.

“I have such a sense of sadness to see this fantastic facility, this school, these buildings, the men and families that live all about it as a cluster. To see and recognize that it is an institution and not an organism. It has all the precious potential for the expression of the kingdom if you would make but one radical apostolic shift from things institutional and the systems of man to the things that are apostolic and are the expression of his life in the community of God which is His kingdom, the Zion of God, the heavenly city, the New Jerusalem which cometh down from above where the spirits of just men are made perfect.”

A Book Review of Conversations With God by Alton Gansky

2011-04-16T10:49:00.000-07:00

I have not read a book on apologetics since Josh McDowell's "Evidence That Demands a Verdict" back in college. I'm glad I picked up Gansky's "Conversations With God" because it is a perfect read for me as father with three young boys. The book indeed reads as easy as a conversation. These are the conversations that dad's should have with their kids. The approach is very conservative, non-confrontational, and fatherly true to the title. I felt so comfortable all the way through reading this book, as if Father was talking to me.

This is good material for future reference. A good hand-me-down for your children when they become parents. A great gift for an unsaved friend. A conversation starter. Make good use of this book. Pass it on.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

How Many Times Must a Man Walk Down This Roman Road?

2011-04-07T11:19:00.001-07:00

Writing “Christian Mythology” was a very long process. The last five years of that effort caused something to happen to me which I can only see in hindsight now. I am just beginning to emerge from the clutches of something I did not expect.

As a writer, I never understood until now what other writers meant when they said that many times they “became” some of the characters in their books. I think of poor Heath Ledger the actor. He became the Joker and it literally killed him. The villain was so dark and lived just to see other people burn. In “Christian Mythology” I became the darkest of all that this book railed against. While I did not take on its teachings, I took on a persona just as negative, wrong, and ungodly. The strange thing is, I remember praying about this so much, asking God to show me the truth, to live the truth, and write it. I never dreamed He would do it by exposing the absolute worst in me just as I had brought to light the worst in the kingdom. This was not God’s payback. It was His mercy.

Since I finished the manuscript I have been miserable. Despair has been my constant companion. The state of God’s Bride is horrible, blemished, and stained with sin. God showed me that I am no different. I cried out to Him asking why? Why save me, why go through all this, if I am to remain a miserable wretch?

I wanted to jump right in to completing the sequel to “Christian Mythology”. While this manuscript talked all about what is wrong with the Church, its sequel “The Remnant” talks all about what is right with the Church and what we, the Bride, should be doing as a Body in these last days. I asked God to have me live this reality just as powerfully as He did with the first book. Oh if I only realized what I had asked for, perhaps I would not have been so foolish. The misery and despair only got worse.

I am convinced now more than ever of the simplicity of the gospel. The blood of Jesus afforded me two things: freedom from sin and death, and; reconciliation with God my Father. I will sum this up in just a few verses. The reconciliation part means that God redeemed me back to the relationship He wanted with His creation in the beginning. That is what Jesus prayed for in John 17. Since sin separated us in the first place, it is sin that I must now die to and stay dead to. That is my responsibility as God says throughout Romans. The indwelling Holy Spirit of salvation gave me that power. Specifically, Romans 6:11 claims this simplicity. Romans 7 declares the difficulty. Romans 8 proclaims the victory.

Go and sin no more. That is a glorious life.

A Review of The Final Summit by Andy Andrews

2011-04-04T15:16:00.000-07:00

A book review of "The Final Summit" by Andy Andrews for Book Sneeze and Thomas Nelson book reviewers.

This book hit the pinnacle for me. This is the second Andy Andrews book I have read and again I give it five stars. Andrews is a wonderful storyteller. Even though you're not halfway through the climb of this encouraging book, you know you want to put one hand in front of the other and turn the pages. There's no guessing the answer to this one no matter the effort. Enjoy the climb and let the surprise at the top encourage you to go beyond.

As "The Noticer" encouraged me to look at things with a different perspective, Andrews' team lead David Ponder found an answer that helped save me from a precipice. This is indeed "A Quest to Find the One Principle That Will Save Humanity" which will leave you breathless at the top. Take a quick look down from there and make your personal and corporate decision. Enjoy the journey whether it be the next peak or the valley of the shadow of death.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Friends and Family

2011-03-28T15:29:00.001-07:00

When I came home from college I shared the good news with my family. At first they did not understand. My parents attended church since childhood. They had me baptized as an infant, confirmed at age thirteen, and we all attended weekly during my growing up years. What did they miss?

I showed them the truth from God’s Word. Soon He saved them too.

Then my sister came home. She was the wayward one, the runaway, a true child of the sixties generation. I shared the gospel with her and God saved her too.

We found a Baptist church nearby and started attending. I earned a Bible degree from Liberty University through their Home Bible Institute. I graduated in 1990 and attended graduation with my fiancée. We came home and married in June. We settled nearby so that all our families were together, no more than about ten miles apart. It was a great thing to have such a godly mutual support system all the time.

As a writer, one of my favorite venues was note-taking in church. I wrote about the sermon. I wrote about the Sunday School lesson. If my mind wandered from them, I wrote what God was speaking to me about. I wrote my own lessons too. I filled dozens of blank books with my notes and muses. Eventually that process slowed down to a trickle. It seemed like the only notes I took were those coming from God. I no longer taught classes. The sermons lost their meat and barely retained their milk. For many years I starved in the church while never losing my hunger for God. So I satisfied it in a different way.

I stopped looking for Him in church and found Him in close fellowship with a few other believers. We started getting radical with the Christian life. We broke a lot of traditional boundaries common to the institutional church. We were closer to God than ever before and close to one another. As we grew, I wrote about our experiences. We relived them as I presented chapter after chapter to my friends. While they didn’t really provide much editorial or critique value, they did continue to grow in their faith as well as a result of remunerating on God’s Word and how He worked in our lives through our shared and unique experiences.

Those writings eventually became the manuscript for Christian Mythology.

Encounters

2011-03-17T13:35:00.001-07:00

While still attending the church I grew up in and hanging out with my friends in youth group, I met a different kind of Christian in high school. Chip carried a Bible everywhere he went. He was very quiet unless someone asked him a question. One day I asked him why he carried a Bible. He explained that he was a Christian. I told him I was too. But something about his answer was different than my answer. Something that made me feel uncomfortable. Something that told me we weren’t really the same kind of Christian.

A few years later, off I went to college in the deep South. I met the guys on the hall. Charles was a Christian. He was always happy, smiling, saying “Good morning!” to everyone. Sometimes when I was having a bad day I would avoid Charles because a hearty “GM” was not what I was in the mood for.

Reggie and Jeff were also Christians. God saved Reggie as a young teen and called him to be a pastor. Jeff was more of a cowboy type. He chewed tobacco. Reggie and Jeff were God’s two witnesses to me. They answered every question I had. Their position never waivered. Salvation was all about Jesus saving me from my sin. I was a sinner. He is Lord. Salvation was a 100% commitment – all Jesus and no more me. I have tried in vain these last thirty years to find Reggie and Jeff. I almost think they were angels sent by God for they have simply disappeared. They’re probably off witnessing someplace else. Most of the other guys on the hall paid them no attention.

There were other Christians on the hall. Some of them were like me so they were the ones I hung out with. We did what everybody else did (like the world). There was one other brand of Christian in abundance. They were the stereotypical Bible-belt Christians. Christian in culture was their brand. They did everything that I and the world did. But they went to church on Sunday, Wednesday night prayer meeting, and Friday night para-church meetings like Campus Crusade for Christ or Baptist Student Union.

After God saved me I started going to all sorts of new meetings where every flavor of Christian showed up. Things became very confusing to me. I rarely saw Reggie and Jeff. I wanted to follow them because they seemed like the real deal. But instead I just found myself with a lot of Christians just like me, newborn and not very far removed from the world. I knew very little about Jesus and a whole lot about the world. It didn’t take long to get back in.

God gave me a holy whack on the side of the head at the end of four years of undergraduate college. I found out what repentance was. He led me to a church up the road from school. There were lots of Reggies and Jeffs there. It was a wonderful, growing, holy time of three years there while I attended graduate school. I found a new para-church group called Real Life and there I found a new group of friends. We did everything together and stayed close for years afterward. I often quote Randy whose hallmark farewell was, “Well, if I don’t see you later, then I’ll see you in a hundred years.” I loved that kind of confidence.

I don’t know if it was God’s plan to allow me to grow up this way. Maybe it was my flesh taking me where I willed, but God’s grace was greater, always taking me back to Himself eventually. I came back with a lot of scars, lessons learned, but full of His Spirit in the end. I wish I did not have the scars and tough lessons. I wish it could have been an easier road. There was nothing godly in my deviations. But God used it for good in the end. He got the glory. I think the glory is not because He got me back, not because He made me a new creation, and not because He had to do it a few times. I think the glory is because He Is. I AM that I AM. Like Reggie and Jeff told me long ago, it’s 100% about Jesus and nothing for me.

How Did it all Start?

2011-03-12T05:49:00.000-08:00

Over the next few posts I want to share with you my story of becoming a Christian. This is not my testimony. That is a two-minute "elevator speech" focused on Jesus, not me. These posts are the earthly story of getting to Jesus.

Like so many Christians, I grew up going to church. I called it the "corporation". They ran it like a business. Whether I ever heard the Gospel there or not I cannot recall. But I went there faithfully every week, got confirmed there, and had many life events recorded there.

One highlight was my Jr. and Sr. High youth groups. I loved them. We were a great bunch of friends both at church and school. We had a great time going on retreats. For some reason I was always the "deep" one when it came to Bible study time and discussion. Although I was Bible illiterate, I had a lot to say about it anyway. As I look back now I could think, "How odd." But instead, I know it was God drawing me.

It seems like in every walk of life, I was always the one selected to do the spiritual thing. I led the chapel services at Boy Scout camp. I always volunteered for anything to do around the church. God's drawing? I suppose so. But these spiritual things came out of books. Boilerplate religious sounding stuff. I had no care nor concern for God or any other person or thing but me.

That was church. Not the kind of church I would ever go back to. I cannot recall the friends and associates there as those representative of Jesus Christ. We were just a group of good kids doing the all-American thing. Going to church, the church of our generations, was the thing to do. We never gave it a second thought.

It can be very hard to question tradition. Tradition feels right. It is bound by a lot of things, none of which may be God, but which God can use to draw us to Himself. Are we free to think that way and dare to challenge the course of natural life for that which is Highest?

Goodbye Elijah

2011-03-08T15:01:00.000-08:00

From “My Utmost for His Highest”:

August 11th.

THIS EXPERIENCE MUST COME

"And he saw him no more." 2 Kings 2:12

"It is not wrong to depend upon Elijah as long as God gives him to you, but remember the time will come when he will have to go; when he stands no more to you as your guide and leader, because God does not intend he should. You say - "I cannot go on without Elijah." God says you must.

Alone at your Jordan. v.14. Jordan is the type of separation where there is no fellowship with anyone else, and where no one can take the responsibility for you. You have to put to the test now what you learned when you were with your Elijah. You have been to Jordan over and over again with Elijah, but now you are up against it alone. It is no use saying you cannot go; this experience has come, and you must go. If you want to know whether God is the God you have faith to believe Him to be, then go through your Jordan alone.

Alone at your Jericho. v.15. Jericho is the place where you have seen your Elijah do great things. When you come to your Jericho you have a strong disinclination to take the initiative and trust in God, you want someone else to take it for you. If you remain true to what you learned with Elijah, you will get the sign that God is with you.

Alone at your Bethel. v.23. At your Bethel you will find yourself at your wits' end and at the beginning of God's wisdom. When you get to your wits' end and feel inclined to succumb to panic, don't; stand true to God and He will bring His truth out in a way that will make your life a sacrament. Put into practice what you learned with your Elijah, use his cloak and pray. Determine to trust in God and do not look for Elijah any more."

What good is repentance? Of what benefit is it to me? Why change my mind and why change who I am?

These are logical questions to ask regarding righteousness. They are the wrong questions.

God commands repentance at salvation. He commands it throughout life. But why? Should I be sorry for being a sinner? At salvation I indeed was a sinner. Utterly depraved. My heart was desperately wicked and deceitful. I could not know it. I could not help my sin nature and could not help but live in sin each day of my life before Jesus. As an unregenerate sinner, I had no idea how wicked I was.

The Jesus saved me and I turned from my wicked ways and God healed me. God’s Holy Spirit filled me for the very first time. I was sealed in His love and salvation forever. Jesus saved me from my sins and delivered me from my sin. Then He commanded me to go and sin no more.

He told me to reckon myself dead indeed unto sin but alive unto God through Jesus. He told me to awake unto righteousness and sin not.

Yet here I am. In sin again. Feeling like the days before salvation. Feeling no better, no different than the sinner I was for eighteen years.

The years between were sometimes blessed with the presence of an Elijah in my life. These were men who led me, taught me, buffered me, listened to me, and most of the time, put up with me. Then they were gone. Each time I reached the banks of the Jordan, they were gone. I had to cross alone. I am disappointed in myself for how many times I have had to cross over, only to be thrown back and try again. Instead of God’s dry path across, the waters rose up and thrust me back upon the bank. Like an Egyptian in the Red Sea pursuing Moses, I was crushed by the furies of the water. Yet I noticed that this water was somehow different.

It was the water of the Word of God. Instead of killing me, it cut me like a sharp, two-edged sword. Instead of drowning me in its filthy mud, it washed me clean by its purity.

I lie on the shore panting, now raging. Beaten. Tired. Wondering. Why do you keep doing this to me God? Why can’t I cross and move on? Why doesn’t Elijah come back and help me?

God’s heavy hand pushes me deeper into the warm sand of the shore. It turns once more into a desert. “Come with Me and learn some more.” Like Paul, I spend a few more years in the desert, learning at the feet of Jesus. Elijah is not there, but Jesus is.

Why should I repent Lord? Why should I change my mind if I won’t get any better? What do I repent of if it will just happen again and again and again?

“You don’t get any better. Repentance is not turning from sin. It is turning from self. It is not a change of mind about sin, to see it as I do. You cannot. Your heart is too wicked, too deceitful, unable to fathom the very depths of sin. I do not want you to be overcome by that.”

Indeed I am not crushed by anything other than my own pride. The root. That is something God can show me and that I can understand.

From “My Utmost for His Highest”:

March 8th.

THE RELINQUISHED LIFE

"I am crucified with Christ." Galatians 2:20

"No one is ever united with Jesus Christ until he is willing to relinquish not sin only, but his whole way of looking at things. To be born from above of the Spirit of God means that we must let go before we lay hold, and in the first stages it is the relinquishing of all pretence. What Our Lord wants us to present to Him is not goodness, nor honesty, nor endeavour, but real solid sin; that is all He can take from us. And what does He give in exchange for our sin? Real solid righteousness. But we must relinquish all pretence of being any thing, all claim of being worthy of God's consideration.

Then the Spirit of God will show us what further there is to relinquish. There will have to be the relinquishing of my claim to my right to myself in every phase. Am I willing to relinquish my hold on all I possess, my hold on my affections, and on everything, and to be identified with the death of Jesus Christ?
There is always a sharp painful disillusionment to go through before we do relinquish. When a man really sees himself as the Lord sees him, it is not the abominable sins of the flesh that shock him, but the awful nature of the pride of his own heart against Jesus Christ. When he sees himself in the light of the Lord, the shame and the horror and the desperate conviction come home.

If you are up against the question of relinquishing, go through the crisis, relinquish all, and God will make you fit for all that He requires of you."

“Your heart, the world, and the wicked one, these will tell you that you will get better. That life with Me makes you progressively more like me and less like yourself. It’s a lie. It’s a masterful deception. Your prideful heart craves it. It is the sin nature which so desperately wants it to be true. As it is, it makes you a god, constantly telling you that you have neither need nor want of Me. This is the thing to repent of. That thing which from the very beginning set mankind against his Creator.”

It’s all really that simple. Everything else will roar in disagreement. Try to do better. Feel bad about your sin. God will forgive you. He’ll make you feel better.

Oh yeah? Them why am I so miserable? God took away my Elijah. He threw me back time after time. He put me in the desert. You call that feeling better? Was Job the righteous about feeling better? Though He slay me, yet will I praise Him. Whether He slay me or I die at my own hand, the Lord is working a good, loving, and at this time, a heavy-handed work. A Father chastises the son whom He loves. It is good for me to be afflicted that I might learn to love and obey you. It is good that God works all things together for my good that I might learn to seek Him with my whole heart. There is no misery when we are One.

I sense that I am near the time when I can go on and not look back for Elijah anymore. He has transferred his cloak to me. He has taught me to pray. He has led me in wisdom. Though my heart may stray again, and surely it will, I will be on the other side of Jordan. Jericho will be in ruins behind me. I will abide in Bethel, the city of God, and dwell there forever. I will behold the beauty of the Lord there and inquire continuously in His temple.

Groundhog Day

2011-02-26T15:07:00.001-08:00

The heaviness continued into the night. My sons were watching Groundhog Day, an old Bill Murray movie. He plays a jerk TV weather reporter. His assignment is to cover the "weather" at Punxatawney, PA on Groundhog Day. A cameraman and a lovely director (who Murray secretly loves) accompany him. Somehow, Murray the jerk gets to live the same day over and over again, screwing up each time as he attempts to get to know and finally get into a relationship with the director. She of course at first wants no part of him. But he learns from each day's mistakes and gets a little farther along with her until finally at the end they live happily ever after.

I don't know if God has that last part in mind, at least not in this earthly life. But I do think that sometimes the Christian life is a little bit like Groundhog Day. By His grace we get to live each day, learning from our previous mistakes, and hopefully making less screwups.

But after reading Jeff Dunn's posts the last two days on internetmonk I think, "Nahhh! Ain't gonna happen." What's next Jeff? I can't wait to see it in my life either. Will it be freedom or prison?

God's Heavy Hand

2011-02-24T17:07:00.000-08:00

As I reported a few days ago, one of my goals for writing "The Remnant" is to live the story first, then write about it. I now know that this is definitely a God-goal. This story is all about what the Church Body of Jesus Christ is to be doing in these last days. God wove a bunch of threads together with a heavy hand this week.

I bought the book "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie. I bought it for my son. Like me as a youth, he is shy and introverted. I knew about this book since I was a kid but never read it. As a Christian I avoided it for what seemed like obvious reasons gleaned from the title alone. On Wednesday morning I read chapter one. The point - never criticize or complain. Many of the stories hit home with me as God brought to mind many incidents of such behavior on my part. But that was not heavy enough.

I kept thinking about them the next two days. I bit my tongue raw to keep my mouth shut. More reminders at work and home flooded into my mind. Though I didn't speak a word of complaint or criticism that last two days, mind mind was equally raw with trying, not as successfully, to think such thoughts.

At lunchtime I read the internetmonk. This post was another of God's heavy handed blows from out of nowhere. Now I understand why brother Jeff has been having as tough, if not a tougher time of it than me since we met last May at a writer's conference.

This afternoon I had to make a side-trip to the grocery store on the way home from work. As I entered the store I recognized a friend from church. Ernie (not his real name) is an older man I have known for many years. He works where I work - as a janitor. He is a sweet Christian man. He is kind of slow in speech and you never know what he will talk about when you meet him. His eyes sparkle with gentleness. His hands are massive and when you expect a crushing handshake, he instead is soft but firm.

I hurried past him with a smile and quick "hello" and quickly gathered the few things I needed. I had plans for this afternoon with my son and did not want to be late.

We've had a lot of snow where I live this year. Eight inches fell Monday night. Folks around here don't know how to drive in the snow anymore and that just drives me nuts. I can complain up a storm bigger than the blizzard when I get stuck behind a slowpoke who doesn't understand the physics of driving on ice.

I pulled out of my parking spot at the grocery and headed for the exit. Not so fast. With nowhere to get around him, I was stuck behind another putz. That's when God's heavy hand sunk me down deep in my seat.

What if it's some old person? What if they really are scared? So what if they shouldn't be out here. They are. That's reality. Maybe it was an emergency and they needed medicine? It could be anything. The point was, I had no idea. God was just putting me in the other person's shoes. Would you like to be the recipient, that driver in front of you, and hear what just came out of your mouth? I'm sure Ernie wouldn't. Sure enough, it was him. Poor, slow, can't help it Ernie. My friend.

God is reaching out to me asking for repentance. Not just sorry for the complaints and criticism, but true repentance. A change of mind.

Chapter two of the book is all about that - offering praise. Nothing less. Stop thinking about yourself and think about the other guy. Encourage him. Build him up. Help him feel important. Lots more examples about raising kids brought more memories of just how bad I have screwed up so far.

I have forty-nine years of screw-up to repent from. Please Jesus. I want to be that new man, no more an Ebenezer Scrooge but the man who woke up to a new morning and knew without a doubt he was different, filled with the spirit every day of the year. Please Jesus. Please.

In Constant Search - A Review of In Constant Prayer by Robert Benson

2011-02-20T11:33:00.000-08:00

A review of "In Constant Prayer" by Robert Benson for Book Sneeze and Thomas Nelson Book Reviewers:

When I first heard about the “Ancient Practices” series, the book on prayer interested me most. I loved the concept, the topic, and the series offerings. In Constant Prayer instead left me constantly searching for anything ancient or new about prayer. What I found instead was a recommendation to return to ancient church (not necessarily Biblical) practices. The author told me I could pray the same prayer as Jesus to His Father but he never told me what prayer that was. He told me all about this idea of the office but never gave an example until the appendix. He did provide plenty of excuses and anecdotes for not praying. This is old, nay, ancient material. It was certainly no encouragement to engage in prayer whether ancient or contemporary.

The support for his position seemed lacking as only two other works appeared in the bibliography. So overall, I learned nothing new from this book about the ancient practice of constant prayer. At one point I was excited by the prospect of finding out how, as an individual, I might learn to pray without ceasing. Instead, the author leads us to believe that this is accomplished corporately as individuals and churches around the world pray the “office” within their time zones of prayer.

I would have enjoyed learning about the ancient origins of the hours of prayer in Bible times. Instead, the author simply offered these as mere facts and then moved on with his personal stories, few of which directly had anything to do with prayer.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

The Road to The Remnant

2011-02-20T05:19:00.000-08:00

Three months after I finished the first draft of Christian Mythology, I finished the first draft of its sequel, The Remnant. That was about six years ago. A few writer’s conferences, writing classes, and a whole lot of prayers later, I have learned a few lessons about those manuscripts.

The first draft is not the final book-ready manuscript.

The way God personally teaches me is not the way most people prefer to learn when they read non-fiction books.

The craft of storytelling does not come naturally to me. It is a learned craft. There are some great teachers out there willing to help.

I put all that together along with disposing of my fear and loathing of editing. Yesterday my pastor told me how much he enjoyed my first book, Biblical Quality. Knowing what I know now (I self-published it in 2000), I told him it was a terrible book that perhaps one day I would re-write. It just wasn’t God’s priority right now. I think the reason he liked the book was because we share two similarities: we’re both engineers and tend to think like logical engineers; and God teaches us in that same way. So he liked the dry, logical, straightforward, lacking in story method present in that book. Bottom line – that first book requires a lot of editing if it will ever sell. It’s still a warm concept on the CBA bookshelves so….

My favorite storytelling teacher is Donald Maass. He has a few books out on the subject. What makes them appealing to me is his prolific use of real, published examples. Sometimes he is fortunate to provide pre- and post-published examples so readers can see the difference a little editing can make. I get that. Good process stuff. And if I like the book(s) he cites, I can buy it and then really soak in some good fiction. Someone once said if you want to be a great fiction writer, you have to also read a lot of great fiction. Sounds good to me. I recently divulged to my Sunday School class that I read a Karen Kingsbury book. That evoked a load chuckle from one woman. “You? But that’s so unlike you!” Sure, most people don’t know that this ice-cold logical engineer also loves a good chick-flick or even some good chick-lit. Even an engineer needs to let off steam sometimes.

Right now The Remnant remains in first draft form in the ethereal world of my laptop. Instead, my historical fiction novel is on the front burner. I’m immersed in storytelling, learning the craft, and putting it on binary paper. In the meantime, God is reminding me of the stories that went into writing The Remnant. At the same time, I am living the story real time, committing it to memory, and waiting to write it down later.

Christian Mythology was all about the sins and false teachings that have shut down the Church and blotted the Bride of Christ. The Remnant follows up with the glorious people and work of Jesus’ Body in these last days. It is a picture of what the Church should be doing in stark contrast to the institutional programs we take for granted as normal going to church routine. It is about being the Church.

The problem is there are so few examples. There is no one like Donald Maass who has put it into a book showing the before and after effects. Very few have dared to put the denominational church under a microscope and dissect it in light of God’s Word. We just assume that everything lines up. Some, like me, are willing to challenge this. Some excellent books on the subject include Mere Churchianity by Michael Spencer, Radical by David Platt, and Jesus Manifesto by Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola. The latter gentlemen have a bunch of other books on the subject which I have not read yet like Pagan Christianity (with George Barna) and Reimagining Church.

But so far, we all struggle with putting together a book which says, here is what Church looks like from God’s Word. Of course we have God’s Word to guide us. We just want to have somebody living it for real so we can put it in print, copy it, and give it to other people who love God and desire to do His will. Uh oh - are we saying that all these other Christians in these mainstream churches don’t love God and don’t desire to do His will?

No. Not all of them. There are some who nod in agreement with us. They groan deeply in anticipation of Jesus’ return, broken by sin, saddened by the rampant deception in the churches teaching for Christian doctrine the myths of man. They want the real thing. They want God’s pure, unsullied, intended from the Beginning life and work of being God’s people – His remnant.

The ones who get angry at posts like this are most likely the same kinds of people who Jesus disputed in no uncertain terms – “Pharisees! Scribes! Hypocrites!” You’ll read books like the ones mentioned above and beat your chest and say in agreement, “That’s right. I’m glad I’m not like that. Off with their heads!” But in reality you are like the Pharisee praying in the temple, “Lord I thank you that you did not make me like other men.” Meanwhile, the remnant prays in a corner, beating his breast, “Lord, have mercy on me!”

While a book sale is a book sale, The Remnant is not for the Pharisees. It will just be more fodder and ammunition for them to twist to their advantage. Yesterday my pastor preached about Acts 13. He said that the reason Paul’s sermon was successful, one preached seven times in the book by one person or another, was simply because it was preached. He told people the truth, the right truth.

While I understood what he meant, I also found the loophole. The right truth is relative in the eyes of many Christians, church organizations, and denominations today. Pick any subject in the Bible and sides will be drawn. They will be equally armed with Scripture to defend their positions. The unlearned will sit on the sidelines and either wonder how this can be that God’s Word can be wielded as a weapon between groups who both call themselves believers, or else they will militantly join one side or the other and continue to promote the attacks and defenses.

Sadly, the books we write sometimes get used as vehicles to continue this fray. But nothing is worse than this, as Harper Lee wrote in To Kill a Mockingbird, “"You are too young to understand it ... but sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whiskey bottle in the hand of--oh, of your father."

Perhaps you see the quandary I am in. I want to write the story for The Remnant. I just have to live it first. I mined all the truth from God’s Word. He taught me a bunch. Now it has to become real. God wants it real, not just words. He wants His Church a glorious Bride ready for His Son. I have no idea what to expect on this journey. I suspect it will not be as easy as writing the first draft.

The Plan

2011-02-04T16:19:00.000-08:00

Here's the plan for my next book. It is an historical novel. Starting yesterday, I will write for 100 calendar weekdays at least 1000 words per day. By May 28, I will have a complete, 100,000 word first draft.

Two weeks prior to that I plan to attend a writer's conference. I will shop the draft idea around to editors and agents. I will take more fiction classes. What I learn, I will take back and edit the novel.

In August, I plan to attend another writer's conference. I will pitch the novel to editors and agents at that time. I'll take a few more classes too.

As all that is going on, I will continue to wait on hearing from editors and agents who have my Christian Mythology proposal. I hope one of them accepts and requests the full manuscript to sell.

Most of all, I will continue to live out the story of Christian Mythology's sequel, The Remnant. As I live it out and learn, I will write the story on top of the technical draft which already exists.

I expect this plan will keep me plenty busy this year. I just brought home a new laptop on which to write all this great work. Pray me Godspeed.

What's Next?

2011-01-30T04:42:00.000-08:00

If you stuck with me through the thirty chapters of Christian Mythology, then thank God. I know it was tough. Sin is not an easy subject. It's personal. Whether it left you cold and indifferent or sensitive and awake, one with God perhaps for the first time since salvation, then thank God. It affected you. I know. I lived every one of those thirty chapters and more. For years. But there's more.

Thirty myths of sin certainly don't cover the full spectrum. The flesh and the devil are far too clever to limit the number. But the good news is that I will leave it alone. The point has been made. It's time to move on.

Shortly after I completed the first draft of Christian Mythology I started into its sequel, The Remnant. Now that draft has sat on the shelves for a few years waiting. It is waiting for me to live it. Once lived, then I shall edit that life into the story. The living is the thing and I'm right in the middle of it. I'd like to share a bit with you.

Life is a struggle. For Christians, it is a struggle between good and evil, sin and righteousness, death and life. I find that struggle played out dramatically between two groups of people on the internet monk: the works righteousness group and the grace group.

I think the monks in the grace group think I'm a works righteousness guy. They fight vehemently against works righteousness. Their favorite target is John Macarthur. I love his preaching so I guess I really am in that camp. I listened to one of his messages about the conscience last week at 11am on WFIL. By the end of the half-hour, I could see why the grace camp doesn't like Macarthur's message. Ironic that his show is called Grace to You. It was all about sin and repentance.

The next day I read a post from Jeff Dunn, a regular monk contributor. He was fed up with the works righteousness crew and wanted to let us know it. Grace, grace, GRACE was his message strong and clear. So strong in fact that like Macarthur, he left something out. The begged question and its answer.

Macarthur preached so strongly on repentance (a work of righteousness) that he included nothing about grace to balance it out. Dunn preached so strongly on grace that someone asked in the comments, "What? Then anything goes?" Hardly. But Dunn failed to balance his message. Seems like these guys always say you'll have to come back for more.

And that is what is happening with all of us. If you read the Christian Mythology series, then you didn't get the rest of the story. Not yet anyway. It's in the next book, The Remnant. There is the balance. But I'm not there yet because although the words are there, the story is not. I have to live it first. I'm right in the middle. It is a grand adventure with Jesus. I hope you will come along.

Because whether you endured Christian Mythology or not, whether you're willing to wait for The Remnant or not, I encourage you to do one thing in the meantime, walk with Jesus. He will show you the truth better than I, Jeff Dunn, or John Macarthur ever could.

Book Review - The Noticer

2011-01-20T15:52:00.000-08:00

Book review of The Noticer by Andy Andrews
via Thomas Nelson Book Reviewers

There’s a reason why this 156-page book ranked in the top 100 sellers for Christian books in 2010. It is worth reading more than once and buying for your friends. It’s a quick read but provocative too, with some worthwhile exploratory questions after the end of the story. As an introspective person, I couldn’t help ask myself those questions as I read along.

Andrews adopted a simple storytelling style making The Noticer appropriate for all age groups. I immediately recommended it to my son and wife.

The book came into my life about two years ago and sat in my inbox. After a major life issue and much soul-searching, this book came out of the inbox at just the right time. Every chapter had something to say to me. I even used some of its ideas on my children to give them a little perspective.

I highly recommend that you grab this book and read it now or keep it in the wings. God knows when you’ll need it. It’s easy to order your copy at Amazon.com. Notice you just click here.

I like the title of this book:

2011-01-19T15:02:00.000-08:00

Imagine my surprise stumbling upon this book today: Awakening, by Stovall Weems. Although I have not read it in depth, that wonderful Amazon.com preview tool was enough to convince me that this book is worth reading. Check it out for yourself at Amazon.com.

I am excited that a lot of books are coming out on the topic of what we call Awakening. If you haven't read them, I hope you will get a copy of these:

Radical, by David Platt
Mere Churchianity, by Michael Spencer
Jesus Manifesto, by Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola

and now:

Awakening, by Stovall Weems

Why would I, a competing author, be excited about these books getting on the shelves before mine? Because I'm awake. And being awake means this life is not about me and what I can get out of it. This life is God's and I am here for His service. I used to worry a lot about getting published. Now I know that if the book I wrote, Christian Mythology, never goes beyond helping the half-dozen or so folks who lived through it with me, then that's enough if that's what God wants. But I know He wants more. He wants all of His saints awake.

What exactly does that mean? Here's a quote from Weems' first chapter:

"Since my awakening more than twenty years ago, I have been in a constant fight to keep that state of newness and freedom in my soul. And to this day nothing is as important to me as keeping my relationship to God fresh and new."

You take it from there. Pick up a copy of the book by clicking here.

Awake! Awake!

A Great Writing Contest for You

2011-01-13T12:25:00.000-08:00

I just discovered the Writing Spa and for my hard work, a chance to win some great writing stuff. The best news is you can win too. The prizes include the 2011 Christian Writer's Market Guide from Sally Stuart, a free non-fiction proposal tutorial, and a complimentary 5-page manuscript evaluation. All this comes courtesy of Mary DeMuth. Go meet her on Facebook to find out more on how easy it is to get seven entries for this contest. Thanks Mary for this great opportunity.

Authors and Journalists

2011-01-12T14:51:00.000-08:00

I usually refrain from commentary on the media. However, the latest accusations against Sarah Palin are wrong. I see among my author friends agreement with this position. I wonder if the journalists are the polar opposite?

Ms. Palin caught the attention of a journalist when she used the phrase "blood libel" in connection with the recent Tucson shooting. Whether she (or her speech writer) knew the origin of this phrase is not the issue. The issue is why it became media-worthy in the first place.

I see perhaps three potential positions the journalist could have taken on this. They chose the approach that just feels like deliberate antagonism. They could have chosen rather to ignore the phrase altogether. Or they could have pointed out the origin and politely corrected Ms. Palin's misuse. But to say that her remarks were deliberate and malicious, just like her campaign crosshair picture, is absurd. Are we to believe that she knew this tragic shooting would take place two years ago when the picture came out? Are we to believe their is some conspiracy lurking beneath her smile and "golly gee" glib?

Some commenters do want to give her the benefit of the doubt. Some are looking for the next opportunity to gig her. Is this journalism? Authors can only get away with this stuff in fiction. Was the journalist just doing his/her investigative duty in digging up the etymology of this phrase? Perhaps. Was it and its results edifying? Hardly. Maybe someone gained by this but I cannot imagine who.

Jesus warned us that we will be judged for every idle word. He tells us that death and life are in the power of the tongue. Therefore, we do have to be careful. Some folks would say, "Well, those weren't my exact words." This kind of double-speak means they only spoke what someone else wrote for them. I'm not saying this is what happened in Ms. Palin's case. My point is a question for us all:

What we say, what we mean to say, and what people perceive we say all matter. We can only control the first two. Shame on those in the third category who make it a living to associate and apply the worst to our words. That is not journalism of any sort. That's just bad manners.

Christian Mythology: 30. Worship – Myth: There’s a war going on

2010-12-29T12:08:00.000-08:00

Let’s bring back ancient worship. But before we do, we’ll have to make a few changes in our church buildings. You see, there’s simply not enough room. Even the largest mega-churches haven’t the space for ancient worship. We’ll either need a new floor plan or a new church building to do this. There is one other low-cost alternative. But we’ll get to that later.

As we’re still in the Christmas season, this picture of ancient worship should be quite familiar to us. The magi entered into the home of Joseph. There they saw young Jesus with Mary His mother. The kingmakers “fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrhh.”

Before we proceed any further, picture this scene firmly in your mind. You know what worship is. You do this every week in church. It might look a little different from church to church, Christian to Christian, but basically we all know that Biblical worship looks like any one of at least ten things. I just read about them in a book. Worship can be things like singing praise choruses or hymns to God, reading the Bible, praying, tithing, taking communion, or laying on hands. All across America we do these things weekly and call them worship.

Now pick your favorite one, the one that means most to you, the one that touches you deeply, the one experience you enjoy the most. Go back to the story above and in place of the word “worshipped” insert your favorite. Let’s try a few.

When the wise men saw Jesus, they sang Him a song.

When the wise men saw Jesus, they took communion.

When the wise men saw Jesus, they had a Bible study.

None of these make sense do they? Maybe it’s the wrong story. Could it be a bad example? Let’s fast-forward and try again with a different story. This time Jesus is in the wilderness, tempted by Satan. The devil took Jesus to a high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and all their glory. He said, “All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.” Let’s try the substitution test again.

Jesus, I’ll give you the world if you will just pay me a tithe.

Jesus, I’ll give you the world if you will just lay your hands on me.

Jesus, I’ll give you the world if you will just pray this little prayer to me.

Still doesn’t work. Of course the problem must be the new kind of worship that Jesus told us about when He spoke to the Samaritan woman. Let’s go there and get this thing right.

Jesus said, “But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.”

This time, instead of taking the substitution test, we’ll try something different. You already know the outcome of the former. Look at the phrase “for the Father seeketh such”. God seeks people to worship Him. He seeks those who will worship in a specific way. Why is He seeking? Has He found you worshipping Him in spirit and in truth? What spirit and what truth?

True worshippers are filled with the Holy Spirit. This is not a function of place or time. Worship is not limited to Sunday at 11 am. Worship begins from a pure, sinless heart. That was one of Jesus’ points to the woman at the well. I am here to wash you from your sins.

True worshippers know the truth about worship. They know there is only one way to do it. They know that ancient worship is the same today as it has been throughout the ages. Worship is Spirit-filled, humble kneeling or prostration before our holy God. Remember the Indiana Jones movie where he seeks the Holy Grail? He must pass some tests before entering the grail’s hiding place. Each test is a clue. The first clue is “Only the penitent man shall see God.” At the last moment, Indie realizes that the penitent man is humble before God and must kneel. He bows just as the booby-trap blade whizzes over his head, missing by centimeters.

Ancient worship is simple. Jesus gave us nothing new. He simply reiterated what has been of old. Those who worship God will come to Him as King and Lord. Is there any other way to come before our Creator than in complete humility on our knees or face? No. And sadly, there is no room in most of our churches to do this. The good news is, you may come and worship God any time you like. You may boldly enter His presence through the blood of Jesus. That is the beauty of holiness.

From ancient worship springs all of life for it brings us into one relationship to our Father.

Christian Mythology: 29. World View – Myth: Christians need to have a Christ-centered world view

2010-12-28T11:12:00.000-08:00

Google the title of my book “Christian Mythology” and you get these top ten hits:

1. Wikipedia
2. Christian Mythology & History “The Christian myth is still very much alive in the world. The chapters on this website will detail the basics of the Christian religion and explore its ...”
3. The Pagan Origins of Christian Mythology “The Judeo-Christian religions were founded in a region of the world where savior religions existed for thousands of years.”
4. POCM Pagan Origins of the Christ Myth
5. Christian Mythology “A myth is a story with 'deep explanatory or symbolic significance', and Christian myth is therefore a story that explains or symbolises Christian beliefs.”
6. Christian Mythology: Adam and Eve
7. Christian Mythology – God, Jesus, John, Jewish, World, and Religion “As it evolved, Christian mythology was able indirectly to incorporate various aspects of Middle Eastern and Greek mythology…”
8. Apostle Ministry “Apostle Edward provides God's case against the organized Christian Church and its orthodox doctrines, which teach against God's Holy Word.
9. God is for Suckers “Blog Archive”
10. Amazon.com: The Christian Mythology Unveiled in a Series of Lectures

The transaction took 0.18 seconds and returned approximately 362,000 results. I stopped looking after page 20 realizing that every entry except #8 above was negative. In other words, most writers using the term “Christian Mythology” take the position that our beliefs/religion are a hoax. While I am not familiar with the Apostle Edward’s ministry, I read the introduction to his work and know that he was on the same path as me.

We Christians are our own worst enemy. We created our own myths. We created them and perpetuated them. While millions claim to believe them, many of them are false. They are myths. The world laughs at them. The church fights back against flesh and blood. But a few daring souls in the Body willingly question the validity of these beliefs. We openly challenge them. We boldly call them false lies when exposed as such.

Some in the organized church do not want to believe these myths exist. If they do exist, certainly they exist in somebody else’s denomination but not mine. God has a lot to say to these fools.

“But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of . And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you….” II Peter 2:1-3a

Jesus warns us in Matthew 7:15, Matthew 24:11, Matthew 24:24, and Mark 13:22 that false prophets and false Christs shall arise and deceive many.

Jesus spoke seven parables in Matthew 13 describing the kingdom of heaven which we know as the church age today. It is filled with tares (sinners and unbelievers), leaven (sin), wicked, and demonic people (fowls in the mustard tree). Just as the church organization of religion is responsible for creating its myths, so the Church Body is responsible for adhering to the Truth, Jesus Christ.

Quite frankly I have no interest in changing or initiating a worldview for Jesus. My purpose is not to eradicate the myths of organized religion or dispel the false teachings of the churches. The sole purpose that God is after is to wake up His saints to be who He created and saved them to be. The paramount purpose is for us to worship God our creator and savior.

That is where the greatest mythological worldview exists – worship. More on that in the final chapter tomorrow.

Christian Mythology: 28. The Last Days – Myth: We’re getting better

2010-12-27T13:43:00.000-08:00

Just about every day this year a dear friend posts a message on Facebook. It is the same message reminding us that 482 Christians will die as martyrs that day. Today’s message brings the total to “175930 believers who died this year because they claimed Jesus Christ the Lord of heaven and earth as their Savior!” Most if not all of these men, women, and children, do not live in the United States.

One reason we do not suffer religious persecution in our land is because of our Constitutional freedom of religion. We do not live in a theocracy where people of faiths other than that of the state fear for their lives. Nevertheless, there are Christians in our land who do claim they are persecuted. Some of the culprits over the years include:

Removal of the Ten Commandments from public buildings
Removal of prayer from public schools
Removal of nativity scenes from government sites
Removal of the name “Christ” from Christmas and replacement with an “X”
Removal of the word “Christmas” from public school concerts and replacement with the word “Winter”

I wonder if these are the things that get our brethren in trouble in persecuted lands like China, Iraq, Iran, India, and Vietnam? I wonder if the 482 will die because they insisted on building a nativity scene in front of the town hall of Papua New Guinea? I wonder how many Christian schoolchildren in Myanmar will die today because they drew a cross in crayon on their book cover?

Somehow I think our view of persecution in this country is a bit skewed. We do not realize that the 482 will die simply because they are Christians who are unwilling to renounce, forsake, or disassociate themselves from Jesus Christ. Many of them have no church membership, no affinity to a particular denomination, or any outward symbol or garb to which they affix themselves. They simply don’t exist. No, these folks have a passionate, real, unwavering relationship with Jesus Christ. He is their savior and Lord. They do not fear death because they have already passed from death to life in Him. They know they will live forever with Him in glory as resurrected saints. What happens to them in this life is of no thought or consequence to them as long as what is happening includes their faithful witness and discipleship of God’s gospel.

They are willing to die for the Way and the Truth and the Life which only Jesus gives. There is nothing manmade about it.

The Christian mythology which we fight so hard for in this country does not bring persecution because we fight for the maintenance of our idols. When we turn and fight for the truth, then perhaps we will experience the joy of suffering with our 482 brothers and sisters.

Christian Mythology: 27. Speaking – Myth: Man no longer receives divine inspiration

2010-12-26T05:50:00.000-08:00

Why do so many Christians believe in a silent God? The standard answer to "How does God 'speak' to us today?" is typically fourfold: from the Bible of course, through other believers, through circumstances, and through prayer.

Let's look just at that last one. How does God speak to us through prayer? By a show of hands please, how many believe God actually speaks to us in prayer? Okay. How many believe this is just a figure of speech? God is really silent on His end of prayer. If there are any replies, they must line up with Scripture, AND, they certainly won't be unique and personal. After all, we don't want to get mystical. Our God is not some New Age god who speaks audibly and interacts personally with us.

Really? What Word of God are you familiar with?

At Antioch, God said this out loud, "As they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them."

When Paul spent three years in the desert learning from Jesus, he says, "that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ." Paul received out loud first person instruction from our risen Lord.

God says, "But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him."

Jesus says, "But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you."

Here is where we get mystical. Earlier this year I went to a Christian Writer's conference. The speaker shared about her son's demise into horrible sin. He finally ended up in jail and she refused this time to bail him out. "I don't want you back until you are that person God made you long ago." She kept a picture of him on her mirror. It was a picture of that former man before the scars of sin took their toll on his face and body. She prayed that vision to God.

She said to us that this is a perfectly acceptable way to pray and ask. Visioning. Oh yeah, it's not New Age. They got it from us!

It's the same thing with God speaking out loud, in person, and interactive with us. He says He will. You just read it in black and white. Do you believe it? Well, maybe you heard about it happening with other kinds of Christians. But it simply wouldn't be acceptable in your church. Certainly not normal. Why not? Do you talk to your children or parents every day? Why can't God do the same?

We claim a personal relationship to Jesus Christ yet how impersonal we are to keep Him at such length that we refuse to hear Him or spend time in His presence.

Christian Mythology: 26. Confession – Myth: It’s good for the soul

2010-12-24T09:25:00.000-08:00

Well I spilled some of my soul yesterday. That may bother some folks. I was not specific about what sins and what things destroyed my mind. But not much imagination is required to figure it out. Sometimes brutal honesty is the best way to get across a point. I know that some of my readers can identify with my past. They need to know that God is good. He is merciful. His lovingkindness has no bounds. But He does have limits. Thankfully, whether we get to heaven at a ripe old age, or we get there too soon because God reached His limit, we still cannot be taken from His hand. He will not forsake us. We cannot lose our salvation.

Jesus spent a lot of time with guys like me. He understood and experienced rejection by the very people we would expect to love and accept us. He visited the homes of sinners. He ate with outcasts. He touched people who had highly contagious diseases. He healed people that the rest of us would have given up on long ago. He called men to Himself that the religious world called ignorant and unlearned. When He was born, the second-most unclean men of all visited Him in the manger. Imagine filthy shepherds trying to get into a modern maternity ward.

Folks like us don't get much better as life goes on. Paul described himself and the other apostles as the "offscouring" and "filth" of the world. Chuck Swindoll elaborated on these terms using the familiar picture of the kitchen sink after the dishes were washed. We are all the crud and scraps caught in the trap.

When we confess our sins, Jesus is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. When we repent, purged with hyssop, and made whiter than snow, our lowly estate does not change. We need to stay humble and keep Swindoll's picture in mind and heart. This we do despite the fact that in Jesus we are clean and sin-free. That is nothing to boast about in ourselves. Our boasting, yea, our confession, is in the cross. Amen.

Christian Mythology: 25. The Mind – Myth: Man has separate inherent abilities from what God gives the Christian

2010-12-23T14:20:00.000-08:00

Jesus says, “Without me you can do nothing.” I believe this black and white statement at face value because I am a living example.

I have three college degrees. The bachelor’s degree is a joke. It was bestowed on a man whose mind was blown with the wicked wares of the world. After four years and a diploma it was time to find a job. A recruiter from IBM asked me, “Are you good?” He knew it was a thinly veiled sarcastic question as he glanced at my sparse resume and below average GPA. I left the interview ashamed but aware of God’s wakeup call. Part of the answer was to go to graduate school. Further shame piled on when certain college department heads looked at me and my record. “You want to go to graduate school? You’ve got to be kidding, right?” Indeed, there was very little left of my brain and God was chipping away at what little was left of my pride.

I went to graduate school. But first I enrolled in God’s school of transformation by mind renewal. I studied hard. I took notes. I paid attention. I went to class clean and sober. I did the things necessary to be a great student, things I had never done before in my life. But more than these, I spent significantly more time with Jesus. At one pastor’s advice, I started reading a Proverb a day according to the calendar (31 Proverbs – 31-ish days in a month). I did this because I knew my mind was shot and I needed knowledge, wisdom, and understanding. I wanted the kind that could not be taken away nor prevented by the current state of my gray matter. Thirty years later I still read a Proverb a day.

I also prayed without ceasing. Before tests, quizzes, homework, or class, I said, “God, help me to remember and to apply and to derive the right answers.” God was very faithful. I earned my Master’s degree. A few years later I earned a Bible degree.

Every day I am in the process of learning and doing the impossible through Jesus. He transformed me by the renewing of my mind. I can take no credit for this whatsoever. In my former state I should have ended up on a steam vent out on the streets. But God is merciful. I put no trust in my own abilities or thoughts. Yes the temptations are still there and I still sin. The impact is always sudden and painful. I wish I could paint a picture for you of Nothing. “Without me you can do nothing.” Nothing is a void. It is utter darkness. There is no sound, no sight, no thought. Nothing is as good as dead. It is a deep, dreamless sleep.

It’s a frightening place to be when God makes you aware of it. That’s good motive to get out. God says the way out is to awake unto righteousness and sin not. That righteousness is Jesus. He alone wakes us up. Have you been roused from your sleep of sin? Have you enrolled in God’s school of transformation? What does your “nothing” feel like?

Christian Mythology: 24. Tolerance – Myth: There is an age of accountability

2010-12-22T15:12:00.000-08:00

I gave my children a lesson in planned obsolescence the other day. They each have an iTouch and enjoy playing games on them. My youngest son is autistic. I think other autistic people invented these electronic games. The repetitive music (tones really, hardly music) and actions naturally appeal to the autistic mind. He locks into playing for hours and hours if we let him. Once the whole family is home from school or work and gathered around the dinner table, the games stop for the day. No more tinny tones and sounds of electronic whizzing bullets and explosions. It’s family time. I like to take advantage of this moment at the table for a lesson.

Although he is autistic, my son can still get bored with the games he has. Another trait of some autistic kids is their uncanny brilliance. My son defeats most games quickly and easily. Therefore he thinks he needs a new challenge. The rest of us are just thankful for a few minutes of quiet relief. But soon his boredom turns to whining. “I need a new game. Can somebody give me seven dollars so I can buy a new game?” Sometimes he actually asks for my credit card to buy a new game online.

Instead of giving in, I asked him if he knew what planned obsolescence is. He’s eleven years old. He has no idea of course. I explained that these games were meant to be defeated. That way you will want to buy another. And another. And another.

I showed him in the Bible how such temptation works. I explained why this marketing formula is so powerful. I hoped he understood. He stopped asking for a new game at least.

But do we understand this principle that Satan uses to market his temptations to us? Do we understand that temptation has no age limit? Though a child may not understand the process described in Proverbs 27:20 and 30:15, an adult is equally susceptible. Though our temptations may be different at these ages, the process is still the same. The outcome is also the same. Death. God describes the inevitable in James 1:13-15. Temptation does not discriminate between young and old.

Praise God therefore that Jesus was tempted in all things common to mankind. Yet He was without sin. He is our way of escape. We do that by coming boldly to His throne of grace. Are you tempted? Run to the throne. Did you succumb and sin? Run to the throne. Will you repent? Run to the throne. There alone is the grace we need in Jesus for freedom, forgiveness, and mercy.

Christian Mythology 23. Health – Myth: God wants Christians to enjoy good health

2010-12-21T08:59:00.000-08:00

I was twenty-six when I had my first heart attack. This was one of God’s many wakeup calls to me.

Jesus healed an infirm man at the pool of Bethesda. Later that Sabbath day, Jesus met the man again in the temple. Jesus said to him, “Behold, thou are made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee.”

Jesus spoke a similar warning in Luke 11:26, “Then goeth he (an evil spirit), and taketh to him seven other spirits more wicked than himself; and they enter in, and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first.”

That heart attack was my worse state with seven more wicked spirits. I did not heed that call and therefore had a second heart attack a year later.

Christians who do not heed Jesus’ warning to “sin no more” are fools. My sister died around the same time I had the second attack. She was a Christian who would not stop sinning. That was another wakeup call to me. No one was safe. God took her home because He would not allow any more dishonor to His Name. Sometimes he gets to that point. His lovingkindness and mercy never end. But He does have limits.

Dr. Adrian Rogers of Love Worth Finding said something like this about praying for the sick:

“Why should I pray for God to heal this person? They’ll just go back to serving Satan in sin.”

He also said this about our prayers in general regarding the health of saints, “We spend more time praying to keep saints out of heaven than we do to keep sinners out of hell.”

What a thing to say about a saint! Shocking. But true. We need to think about these things. Before we concern ourselves with good heath, great wealth, and overwhelming blessings from God, we need to turn to His point of view. Is there any sin in my life? Am I right with the Lord?

I bear more physical scars in my body because of sin. These are not the marks of the Lord Jesus that Paul spoke of. Oh that I had more of those instead. Mine are scars of shame. Praise God He has spared me, awakened me, and chosen me still as a vessel of honor.

Christian Mythology: 22. Sin – Myth: Christians are free from the power and penalty of sin

2010-12-19T04:29:00.000-08:00

"For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace." (Isaiah 9:6) Thus begins the story of the incarnation of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. He came to earth as one of us but He lacked one thing. The absence of a sin nature (and by extension, the commission of any sin) set Him apart from the rest of us. Imagine what a unique person Jesus was while growing up. No rebellion. No selfish crying, "Mine! Mine! Mine!" Instead, He Who knew no sin became sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

That is why Jesus came. That is why God sent Him. This is our atonement, our redemption. The angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph and embellished the meaning of Isaiah's prophecy. "And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins."

The war over Christmas really wearies me. Keep Christ in Christmas. No more X-mas. Jesus is the reason for the season.

No. Jesus is the reason we are free from sin. While there is great cause to rejoice in this reality, it just seems like the focus is all wrong this time of year. Consider Hebrews 10:12, "But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God." Jesus' death happened once. His atonement happened once. His blood redemption happened once. Likewise His birth happened once. None of these things happen annually. There is no more sacrifice for sin. There is no second savior on the way.

We would do well to brood on the blood remembering in the way God commands in I Corinthians 11. We would do well to increase the frequency of our obedience here and greatly decrease our debates about the meaning of Christmas. The birth of Jesus was a one-time historical event which ushered in the very turning upside down of our world. We cannot deny the significance of the event. But its very meaning, God's purpose, was all about sin. We see very little of that today in our celebrations. We tend to emphasize the giving.

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.... Our Father gave Jesus in this way "Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin," The incarnation of Jesus Christ is about nothing more than His certain death. This should bring us to tears. Instead the world flips the switch and exchanges the light of a pagan tree for the Light of the world.

Christian Mythology: 21. God – Myth: God loves everybody and has a wonderful plan for their lives

2010-12-17T15:23:00.000-08:00

A half truth is no truth at all. This myth is all about balance. God loves. God also hates. We love God because He first loved us. Sinners hate God. But what about Christians? What is their attitude towards God when they sin? The answer I came up with may shock you as much as it did me.

“No God! Surely not I!” I cried. I knew I had unconfessed sin in my life. The surface consequences are well known. Unconfessed sin is unforgiven sin and we are unclean and unrighteous. That may be tough enough to swallow. Many Christians will enter denial right there with the “I’m under grace” argument. When Paul asks the rhetorical question, “What? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?” he specifically addresses grace and grace alone. Of course God’s grace is immediately present. But grace has nothing to do with unforgiven, unrighteous, and unclean. Rather, God’s grace and goodness leads us to repentance where Jesus forgives and cleanses us.

Sin left unrepented of leads to reprobation. This is a seared conscience. Think of searing as in cooking. Searing is meant to be a quick method of sealing in those wonderful juices of a steak before continuing to cook it the rest of the way. But if you don’t take the steak off the searing heat, eventually the steak will burn. Eventually that burning will leave behind nothing but ash. That ash is good for nothing but the garbage can.

Sin starts that way too. Left alone for too long and fostered and fed, the flames of sin will burn our consciences beyond repair. They become reprobate. This has nothing to do with salvation. It has everything to do with the glory of God and our usefulness in His kingdom.

Sin need go no further than the first instance for something far more horrifying to occur. Something most of us would not like to admit. Before I tell you what it is, think about this. God says that if we sin in one part of the law, we are guilty of all. Now put all that guilt of yours upon Jesus and multiply it by the billions of people in the world. That is the magnitude of sins Jesus saved us from. That is how much His blood covered and washed away.

When we sin after salvation, we trample on that blood. We are wicked. And here’s the killer that really got to me. We despise the Lord. Despise is a powerful word. It means to hate in the deepest way.

“No not me Lord. That’s for sinners, the lost, the unbelievers. Not me!” we cry. Yes, sin knows no bounds. It affects us all the same.

I discovered this truth in an exhausting word study. There was just no way around it. Find the word “despise” and it will be tied to believers. How great is His love and grace. Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid! Imagine the grief of God over this, inferior only to His superior grace. Is it any wonder that the warnings of Hebrews 10 are not all instant judgment instead as we trample underfoot the blood of Jesus when we sin? Sometimes, we end up reprobate. Sometimes we end up dead.

Christian Mythology: 20. Dominion – Myth: Mankind no longer has dominion over the earth

2010-12-16T14:10:00.000-08:00

When all those animals were on the ark, why wasn’t there a huge carnivorous brawl? Did God put all those predators to sleep? Was the food chain somehow put on hold for all those months? Did Noah and his family live in constant fear of being eaten? Were they worried that some of the animals wouldn’t make it out alive and they’d get in big trouble for letting some species become extinct? Did God set them up for some impossible expedition?

No. Noah accomplished all he did with the animals because he had dominion. He simply obeyed God’s command from Genesis 1:26 to exercise dominion over the animal kingdom.

So what happened between the flood and now? If we tried the ark thing we would definitely be eaten alive. Wouldn’t we?

I watched an amazing video recently. A woman found a young lion injured and dying. She nursed it back to health. When the beast became too large to keep around the house, she gave it to a zoo. Years later, she came to visit. She walked right up to the bars to say hello. Frightened onlookers watched as the full-grown male lion leapt to the bars, thrust his paws through, fully embraced the woman, pulling her firmly against the bars in a vice grip, and began to gently muzzle her, kiss her, and lick her. He remembered her. She remembered him. It was nothing more than a happy reunion.

A friend told me about an amazing journey he took to the Caribbean a few years ago. He and his wife wanted to take an off-the-beaten-path scuba diving adventure. A local islander told them where to go and who to ask for. They found a certain old man at his grass hut. He agreed to take the couple out. But they had to agree to never go where he would take them alone nor tell anyone where they had been. They agreed to the strange request.

When they arrived at the beautiful blue open ocean spot, my friend put on his mask. He peered over the side of the shallow boat just far enough so the mask glass was below water. He saw nothing. He was suspicious because of the open ocean location. It was deep water. He expected a coral lagoon. He was worried that this guy had some sinister motive for taking him and his wife all the way out to this remote location.

Then the old man motioned for them to watch. He spoke not a word. He slowly dipped his hand into the glassy blue water. Instantly, as if materializing from nothing, thousands of tropical fish appeared. The water became a snorkeler’s paradise, a dream come true. The old man got into the water first while the couple sat in the boat dumbfounded. He motioned for them to get in and follow.

“Would you like to feed the giant rays?” he asked. They just nodded, still mesmerized by the rainbow of small tropical fish around them. Suddenly the sun seemed to disappear above them as the giant rays glided in over them. The little fish made way as in royal deference. The threesome came up for air.

The the old man asked, “Would you like to feed the sharks too?” Although the trust was gaining, the couple were a little freaked out by this. They swam a little closer to the boat and waited. The rays glided away and the sharks lazily swam into view. They came right to the old man. He reached out and gently patted each one on the head. They completely encircled him. There was no escape if they decided to chomp on him instead of the chum he offered them.

On the ride back to the island, the old man told his story. He told the same story to those few fortunate vacationers who find him. He told it to the Discovery Channel. Now the world knows about this old man of the sea who has dominion over all the creatures of the deep.

Like Steve Irwin and the other folks we love to watch on TV, the people in these stories have learned how to reawaken the gift of dominion given to us by God. There is no reason except fear which keeps any of us from doing the same. If you watch “Sarah Palin’s Alaska” series currently running, you’ll see that the former VP contender and her native Alaskan family also use this wonderful gift. It’s a real treat to watch.

I enjoy it even more when I’m outdoors. If you prefer to wait, there will come a day when God will change things around a bit in the animal kingdom. During the Millenial Reign, Isaiah prophesied that the food chain will be turned upside down, perhaps horizontal. Lions will eat straw like the ox. The cow and the bear shall feed together. The wolf shall dwell with the lamb. Now here’s the best part for us. “…(A) little child shall lead them.”

Christian Mythology: 19. Israel – Myth: The Church has replaced Israel and is the new recipient of God’s promises

2010-12-15T14:23:00.000-08:00

Last Friday afternoon a friend loaned a book to me. I read Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol over the weekend. What a pleasure to have nothing better to do than curl up with a good book by the fire for an entire weekend. The action in the book takes place over the span of a mere ten hours. I think I read at about the same pace. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Right away I can hear the Christians crying out, “Heretic!” That all started with Brown’s first book in the series, The DaVinci Code. Remember folks, this stuff is fiction. What is non-fiction the author clearly points out in the foreword. Even then, to some readers the lines are blurred. Hence the caution, or should I say, encouragement, to read with an open mind.

In some cases you don’t need to read to see the truth. Much of the book’s action takes place inside the U. S. Capitol building in Washington, D. C.. I took my family there during the Christmas holidays last year. The new visitor’s center opened recently so we took a fantastic tour of this iconic building. The inside of the dome is just as Brown describes it. There at the top is the apotheosis of George Washington. Surrounding him on the catwalk perimeter are thirteen statues of various mythological gods and goddesses. I highlighted this to my children and asked them to reconcile a statement that we hear far too often today.

If this country was founded on Christian principles by Christian fathers, then why did they make such prolific use of what appears to be non-Christian (aka pagan) symbology? The capitol building is not alone in this enigma. The adjoining Library of Congress also contains a great deal of secular and pagan symbolism in statue, written, and architectural form. How strange it must seem to have all this surrounding one of the last surviving Guttenberg Bibles (prominently displayed in the left-central wing before the grand staircase).

If you look at all this with an open mind you have to ask yourself just how Christian this all is. This is itself a trick question because we all have a very subjective definition of “Christian”. Usually, without thinking or little basis in research or fact, to us as individuals, “Christian” means “just like me.”

Expand this thinking a little bit and you can see how some Christians extrapolated it to mean that all Christians are just like us in the U. S. A.. This dangerous approach partly created a myth believed by many that America replaced Israel as God’s holy land, our Christians for God’s chosen people. The blatant absence of Jewish symbology in our capitol’s architecture is no objective proof of this viewpoint. Instead, it may point to a very fleshy pride we take in ourselves and our country. (I am in no way discounting the tremendous blessings and freedoms we enjoy in our land. They were bought with the price of brave men and women who gave their lives for our future. I am not so sure that the blood of Jesus Christ has anything to do with it.)

Dan Brown brings this all to light towards the end of the book where he quote heavily from Biblical texts. Unfortunately, his theology is a bit skewed at the end. Nevertheless, without being a spoiler for those who have not read the work, I will emphasize again his point to read with an open mind. For instance, with a bit of change in perspective, the reader easily understands the transformations that Brown wants us to believe - that is, that man can become god (apotheosis). Brown does a great job of using ancient language to his advantage until the very end when he expects us to allow the English word “atonement” to stand on its own. He is not the first (I have heard many preachers use this example) of breaking the word into parts “at-one-ment” to describe our relationship to God in ourselves becoming like Him as gods.

That’s where he missed the entire point of atonement. A better study on His part could have perhaps revealed the at-one-ment that God desires for us all. Jesus prayed for it in John 17. Read it carefully, particularly when you see the word “one”. What do you see?

In Genesis, we lost our “at-one-ment” with God when we became like Him. We became as gods knowing good and evil. We were already created in His image. That’s not the god-like trait in question here. Along with that knowledge we also took upon our race the sin nature. That nature split us apart from God, severing our “one” relationship. The blood atonement of Jesus Christ redeemed us back into that “one” relationship with our Father.

The ultimate purpose of this work is to restore Israel back into the sheepfold of Jehovah. Fellow partakers of this Gospel reside in America and throughout the world. God bestows His blessing on a people, not a place.

Christian Mythology: 18. The Law – Myth: Christians don’t have to keep the Old Testament Law

2010-12-15T14:22:00.000-08:00

Romans 6, 7, and 8 can be very confusing. To achieve some level of emotional and spiritual comfort, Christians latch on to certain verses and make them foundational, personal theology. Here’s an example:

Romans 7:25 – “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.”

Compare that verse with Romans 6:14-15 – “For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace. What then? Shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid.”

Which verse are you most familiar with? Most likely the latter with an emphasis on, “I’m not under the law. I’m under grace.” Which verse are you most comfortable with? Anything to do with grace is most likely.

Which verse is most confusing? Most likely the first one. Why? I suggest because this word is meat not milk. It is hard. All three chapters are hard. But I also suggest that a fundamental understanding of them is required for any Christian to be truly free in Jesus.

The law is good and holy and necessary in the life of the Christian. Romans 7:7 – “What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.”

Paul speaks to Christians here. He speaks to himself. He speaks in the context of the church age, the New Testament, and to Gentiles. He says that the Jewish law is necessary in their lives. It is not necessary to be under it. It is necessary to respond to it.

If you approach a STOP sign, you do not stop your car because you are under the law. The law is good and for your good. It protects you. It prevents problems. In the event you disobey however, the law on the sign accuses you when the police report cites failure to STOP as the cause of the accident. If you didn’t know before, you certainly know now. STOP means you, now, here, or else.

Sadly, people treat God’s laws as bad things. We accuse God of keeping good things from us. We look at His list of do’s and don’ts and demand freedom. We fail to see the freedom that already exists in the law.

I have very few rules in my house for my children. The law I cite most frequently is, “Don’t lie” or “Tell the truth.” Every so often one of my children will accuse me of being too restrictive. “You don’t let me do anything!” On the contrary. I leave them to do as they please most of the time. What they please to do usually falls within the bounds of my rules and God’s laws. Therefore, nothing needs to be said. No correction is necessary. Until the transgression occurs or the law is given with which they are not familiar, there is no knowledge of the law.

Many men through the ages took delight in the law. Paul, David, and Jesus delight in the law of God and allow its good purpose in their lives.

Paul said, “I delight in the law of God after the inward man.”

David said, “But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.”

Jesus said (prophetically in Psalm 40:8), “I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, they law is within my heart.”

Knowledge of the law is a good thing. For without it we would do as our sin nature directs us to do. All the while our hearts would deceive us and tell us that what we do is acceptable to God. Therefore the law keeps us on a straight and narrow path. God’s grace provides the way through Jesus, the power through His Holy Spirit, and the knowledge through His Word.

Christian Mythology: 17. Holidays – Myth: Of course we should celebrate all Christian holidays

2010-12-13T12:34:00.000-08:00

The chapter titles in this book should cause you to think before you read on. I carefully selected the words to accomplish two things. First, the words seem completely normal and accepted language. Yet the provoking word “myth” precedes every chapter heading. Why? To achieve the second purpose of breaking apart, if just a little bit, the stronghold of belief.

If Christmas is anything, to many the word “believe” sums it up. Of course the battle rages between the Santa and sacred camps to believe in him or Him. That’s not what this myth is about. But first I backtrack a bit to the title again.

Focus on the words celebrate, Christian, and holidays. Last two first. There are no Christian holidays. You will not find them in the Bible. Beyond the historical fact of one-time occurrence, what we call holidays like Christmas and Easter, they are nothing more. God never sanctioned them as annual memorials, milestones of remembrance, or repeatable acts. Their historical and spiritual importance stand on the fact of God’s great work and grace. The only New Testament event which God endorses as memorial, milestone, and repeatable is the Lord’s Supper. Why didn’t we make that into a holiday?

There are very specific reasons why certain events became holidays. I won’t go into them here. I’ll leave that to scholars like Frank Viola and his book “Pagan Christianity”. Let’s go back to the title word “celebrate”. This is one of those contemporary buzzwords in church. Stick it with words like “awesome, like, and ya know.” It’s just as grating. We do things like celebrate the death of a saint (their homegoing); we celebrate the Lord’s death and future coming at communion; we celebrate the birth of our Savior; we celebrate all things Biblical if we can find sufficient reason and funds.

A certain organization proposes to build a theme park which will celebrate the great flood. They want to build a life-size ark, parade the animals in two-by-two every day, and have actors mix with the crowd, giving visitors an interactive experience beyond compare.

I’ll say. If the experience remains at all true to the Bible, no one will walk out of the park alive. When the flood came, every living thing outside the ark perished. Yet we are expected to celebrate this judgment of God? Meanwhile, the sacred camp sees the happy bluebirds singing, the beautiful rainbow, the animals leaving the ark three-by-three. PTL! Another great opportunity to share the gospel with the world. Millions will be saved.

We feel the same way about Christmas and Easter. Put on a big show to attract the C&E crowd. This may be our only chance to witness to them. Why do we think this way? Why? Why can’t we witness to them the other 364 days of the year? What are we doing that is so important that we are willing to let dead souls lie until the next big celebration event? Why do we think God needs any help creating a spectacular event to attract sinners to Jesus? To me, nothing is greater than seeing a person come to Jesus alone, broken, repentant, and in the end, alive.

Patrick Henry famously said, “Give me liberty or give me death.” I say, “Give me Jesus and put all else to death.” Jesus doesn’t want celebrations and shows. He wants sinners, broken people, shattered lives, evil men and women without hope.

There is only one celebration I look forward to. One day, Jesus will host His wedding feast. I’ll be there. I don’t expect any actors there. Jesus said they will be cast out. He can tell them by their outfits. They will have no wedding garments on. I don’t expect any fireworks or lights there. Jesus will be there in all His glory to light the great hall. I don’t expect any rehearsed script. Jesus will complete that which was written from eternity – the marriage supper of the Lamb and finally, the creation of the new heaven and new earth. I hope somebody doesn’t try to build one of those in Orlando.

Christian Mythology: 14. Satan – Myth: Sin is Satan’s fault in the Christian’s life

2010-12-13T12:33:00.000-08:00

I recently discovered a trait of Satan which I am sure he did not want me to know about. For years I knew that Satan is a single being. His power is limited. Unlike God, he is not all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-present. Therefore, I concluded, particularly on the third count, that Satan could not be responsible for so much that we attribute to him. If he is off bothering one Christian somewhere, he cannot be in two places at once. Hence, he can’t be bothering me while at the same time bothering you. Therefore, whatever is going on, the cause cannot likely be Satanic in origin. The cause must be of the flesh.

While I still hold strongly to that belief, this discovery about Satan has set it back a bit. As I studied God’s Word about Satan, something about my belief just didn’t hold up. For instance, God wrote Ephesians 6:11 to a wide audience, not to an individual or in the singular case. “Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.” This is true of many verses about Satan and his interaction with Christians. Since our theology about his limited powers still stands, I had to ask myself why God wrote these verses to a broad audience instead of singular.

The only thing I can conclude is that Satan has one power which enables him to bother Christians seemingly all at the same time. He has the power of speed. This gets into the spirit realm. This is a realm which we know little about today. Philip experienced it at least once when he was caught up in the Spirit and found himself out in the desert alongside the Ethiopian eunuch. Some folks compare this translation to “beaming up” from Star Trek. Just as God can use spiritual means to nearly instantaneously transport our physical bodies across great distances us, so can Satan use this method. I suspect the angels and demons can also do this.

Therefore the warning to us to be sober and vigilant takes on all the more gravity. For our adversary, the devil, is nearby and in an instant can be closer than we desire. We must keep our spiritual armor on all the time.

The “good” news for some Christians is that if they remain asleep in sin, they need not worry about any visits from Satan. They do his work for him without need of further assistance.

But when a Christian wakes up or senses the pricking of the Holy Spirit to repent, I believe both Satan and the flesh will rear up to resist. This is a power we need to learn to recognize. This is the battle in the spiritual realm that we fight. It is not a battle of the flesh. We have no power over the dead man of the flesh. Our victory is only in Jesus and His death. To live sin-free and awake unto righteousness here on earth we must continually do battle in the heavenly places with Jesus’ blood-washed linens beneath our armor.

Christian Mythology: 16. Missionaries – Myth: Only Certain Christians are Called

2010-12-12T14:35:00.000-08:00

Every year at the missionary conference at church I hear the same message. "Everyone is a missionary." True. True. True. So why are most people still in the pew year after year? There are two possible reasons. On the positive side, some folks fulfill God's "missionary" purpose in their lives right where they are. They know God's will, they know and use their spiritual gifts, and they actively apply those gifts in prayerful pursuit of witnessing and making disciples. On the negative side, life is just the opposite. These folks have no idea of God's kingdom purpose. They don't know God's specific will for their lives. They have no idea what their spiritual gifts are. So naturally they are not engaged in the prayerful pursuit of witnessing and making disciples.

Why not?

Well, some are not Christians. Therefore they cannot know.

Others are Christians asleep in sin. Their ears are dull. Their eyes are dim. Their hearts are hard.

God saved me in October of 1980. I was awake for a few months. The aftermath of the witnesses wore off and soon I was back to my old ways. I had no discipler. Nobody taught me the Word of God. Sometime around 1985 the Word of God woke me up again. The goodness of God led me to repentance and the blood of Jesus was still sufficient to cleanse me from all unrighteousness. Then, Jesus became my teacher. Alone. In the desert of life He taught me then just as He teaches me now through the power and illumination of the Holy Spirit. I spent the years between 1980 and 1985 asleep, dull, dim, and hard. It still happens as I work out my salvation with fear and trembling. For the last ten years, I spend more and more time with Jesus, awake unto righteousness, and full of the joy of His salvation.

This is the missionary message we are called to take to the world. It is found in I Corinthians 15:1-5. This is the Gospel. Tell people about the death of Jesus as the price for sin.

This is the missionary message we are called to take to Christians asleep in sin. It is found in I Corinthians 15:34. This is also the Gospel. The death of Jesus is still sufficient a price for your sin. Wake up and sin not.

Only the Christian awake receives the teachings of the Word. Only those who sin not present themselves as holy and acceptable living sacrifices to God. Upon leaving the altar, they alone know God's will. They alone are filled with the Holy Spirit. They alone have His power to use His gifts.

It took me nearly twenty-five years to learn that, actively engage in my responsibility to work it out, and resolutely utilize His gifts to accomplish His missionary purpose through me. Do I wish I knew this stuff long ago? Yes. God is merciful and taught me now to use me now for His glory now. He will do the same for you.

Christian Mythology: 15. Spiritual Gifts – Myth: Certain spiritual gifts are no longer given to Christians

2010-12-11T06:43:00.001-08:00

A few months ago our new senior pastor arrived. During the search and candidate period, another pastor requested prayer for these activities. We petitioned God to raise up the right man for the job.

I suggested to the pastor that we open up the petition to include other gifted members of the body. The pastoral gift is just one of many which complete the Bride. We also need the prophets, the mercies, the healers, teachers, and all the rest.

Why do we need so many special people? Gods says we need them “…for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:” so that ultimately “maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.”

This process works best with a fully-equipped body. Missing parts (gifted members) makes the process slow and difficult. Sometimes it is roadblocked because of the overemphasis placed upon the role of the pastor. Sometimes this is compounded because of the lack of emphasis on the need for the other gifted members.

Find out what your gift is and stir it up. Use it continuously for the glory of God in this present kingdom.

Christian Mythology: 13. Music – Myth: Good worship music is a matter of personal preference

2010-12-09T14:02:00.000-08:00

God saved me in October 1980. All things Christian were completely new to me. Although I grew up in a Presbyterian church, this new life in Jesus introduced me to a lot of different things. I grew up in the north. I attended college in the deep south. That’s where God saved me. That’s where I learned a lot about the cultural style of southern Christianity versus what I was used to up north. I also learned a lot about other styles of Christianity by listening to Christian radio WLFJ.

The early 80’s brought on a new style of music called contemporary Christian. This moniker set apart this brand of music from the traditional hymns. Down south at that time there were two kinds of music at church: hymns and southern gospel. From my experience, hymns were sung in the conservative Baptist churches; southern gospel was set apart for the black churches and the Pentecostals. Soon after the war started about this new contemporary Christian music, the name changed to scale down the conflict. We called these new tunes “choruses”. Today, opponents call them “7-11” songs: seven words sung eleven times. Choruses were sung by the independent churches and increasingly at the conservative churches too, but only during the evening service.

The worship war camps established firm turf and they have remained entrenched ever since. Many church divisions and broken lives lay in the wasteland between. Many Christians have fallen asleep because of this war. It is a war created by Satan and Christians are fighting it for him. Why do I attribute this war to Satan? Because it is wrought with confusion. Satan is the author of confusion. Chaos reigns in the churches where this war is fought. This need not be so.

The primary issue of confusion centers around two points. First, the belief that music is a form of worship is a myth. Second, the belief that any music we make, whether hymns or choruses, is worthy of our use to praise God.

Music is the combination of words and notes played by voice and/or instruments. The words we use to praise God are supremely important. Years ago a senior pastor taught a Sunday School class about the history of our favorite Christian hymns. He pointed out that quite often the doctrine of some of those hymns was either questionable or flat out unbiblical. He warned us to be careful therefore that we never adopt our theology from the hymns. Only the Word of God can be trusted for truth.

I took his advice to heart and paid close attention to those hymns. I stopped singing the ones that were false. No matter how precious, traditional, or beautiful they sounded, they stopped passing my lips. If the words were false, I would not sing them to my Father.

After a short time, hymns left my church for a while. We went 100% chorus. I applied the same warning to these songs and soon stopped singing them too. I was left with nothing to sing. This struck me as a shame because I knew that God loved music and praise. As the church split over the hymn versus chorus war, I discovered the obvious.

God wrote 150 wonderful songs of praise, contemplation, and thanksgiving. He calls them the Psalms. Sometime around 2006 I discovered that some churches actually use the Psalms as their music. The words were put to music and became the Psalter. My delight lasted for a little while until I found out that even this wonderful work has a hidden war. There are different Psalters depending on which camp you are in. I can only imagine the grief of God as He sees how we bastardize His holy Word like this. Currently I am searching for the most ancient versions of the Psalms. I have queried many Jewish sources for their music and words. No success yet.

Nevertheless, I am convinced that the Psalms are the sure path to musical praise of our God. We can be sure that the words are true and pleasing to Him. All that is left is to settle the score with folks who prefer one Psalter translation to another. This is similar to the Bible wars with the King James camp versus everybody else. In an earlier post I pointed out the foolishness of this. Most of us have no idea what we are really fighting about and how these battles arose. I urge you to read a book by Frank Viola called Pagan Christianity. Like my former senior pastor, Mr. Viola points out the errors made in our Bible translations and then warns us to carefully heed the scholarly work of the Greek and Hebrew translators. He uncovered the great difference between the language and context of the original texts and the language and cultural context applied to the Word 1600 years later by King James.

I will leave you with God’s point of view on this. Do not add to His Word or He will reprove us and find us liars. (Proverbs 30:6) Do not take away from His Word or He will take away our names from the Book of Life. (Revelation 22:19)

Christian Mythology: 12. Denominations – Myth: It doesn’t matter what church you go to

2010-12-08T14:34:00.001-08:00

How many times have you heard someone say, “I don’t have to go to church to worship God. God is everywhere. And besides, wherever two or three are gathered together in His name, there He is in the midst.” Taken independently, these three statements are true. In context, they are false. Even pastors use the last phrase incorrectly, applying it indiscriminately to any situation where Christians gather for whatever purpose (usually prayer).

This verse comes from Matthew 18. Its primary context is discipline (often called church discipline). Its greater context in the chapter is Jesus’ teaching about humility in the kingdom. The meaning we attach to this verse is usually man-centered and proud. We think that all we have to do is get a few Christians together and Jesus will show up. We think the same way about Sunday church. God is nowhere around and not to be found until 11am when all the Christians show up. Then “Poof!” there He is in the midst of us. Choose any church, any denomination, and God is at our service. Some pastors still call the church “the house of God”. This is also an error.

For New Testament believers, the “house of God” is within. God says our bodies are now the temple of the Holy Ghost. Jesus’ preincarnate name is Emmanuel – God with(in) us.

We don’t go to church or synagogue anymore to meet with God. He is no longer behind the veil. We are the Church Body of Jesus Christ. As one with God through Him, we go together and we are one everywhere we go. God is not tagging along waiting for a congregational gathering. He has made Himself one with us again through the blood of Jesus Christ.

Does it matter what church we go to? Not a bit. It matters that we are the Church and that at all costs we maintain our one relationship to God. This brings glory to our Father any day of the week, any time of day whether you are alone or gathered with the Body in fellowship.

This brings us to one other point of issue. Some people say, “If you tell us to stop going to church then you disobey Scripture which tells us not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together.” Let’s take a look at that verse and see if this is a fair and true statement. This verse is part of a very long sentence beginning in verse 19 of Hebrews 10. I alluded to it a moment ago. “Having therefore , brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus….” God goes on to list three things to do in response “let us draw near…let us hold fast…and let us consider….” Since the word “therefore” precedes all this, we must understand what the therefore is there for. That provides the context of the passage. The context is not a commandment for regular church attendance.

The context is all about redemption and atonement for sin by Jesus. His blood sacrifice bought our way forever into adopted membership of His Body, His Church, as His Bride. Following the verse in question, God warns us of the consequences of trodding under foot the Son of God and counting His blood an unholy thing. We don’t do this by not showing up on Sunday. We do this by breaking our one relationship with God when we sin.

Going to church won’t stop you from sinning. The power of Jesus’ atoning blood alone enables us to go and sin no more. We die to sin as we die daily with Him. He died once, but we must continually reckon ourselves dead indeed unto sin. The problem is, as Oswald Chambers says, we refuse to go to our own funerals. So many of us were genuinely saved but quickly fell asleep in sin once again and have remained so for so long that we no longer know the difference between our former lives as sinners and our pathetic church-going lives as so-called Christians. Stop going to church and trodding on Jesus.

If you must, get together with two or three brothers and sisters in Christ who love you enough to lead you to repentance in tears and humility. Restore the joy of your salvation. Jesus indeed will be there in the midst.

Christian Mythology: 11. The Daily Christian Life – Myth: Christians can do whatever they want to

2010-12-07T13:37:00.000-08:00

Long ago when I was still super-charged about going to church, my schedule looked something like this:

Sunday morning, Sunday night, Tuesday night Bible study, Wednesday night prayer meeting, Friday night AWANA

Man I was busy. I was also fast asleep. Going to church did not save me from sin. Neither did it keep me from sinning. Going to churchy activities and events did not put me to sin-sleep. I don't blame the organizational church for that. Sin is my own fault. I have an old-man sin nature.

I still go to church. It's more like showing up for me though. All the organizational activities and events remain much the same. It's me that has changed. As long as I am awake, I am the Church Body of Christ. I am the Bride of Jesus. As such, there are a bunch of things that I do continuously. That schedule looks something like this (continuously):

pray, be one with God, witness, make disciples, use my spiritual gifts, keep the commandments, love God with all my soul, strength, and mind

This is a picture of the Bride/Church faithfully watching and waiting for the return of Jesus our Bridegroom. We have no business being about any other business. I remember a quote from long ago, "Love God and do as you please." Think about that. We know that if we follow Jesus, we will please God. Are we being the Church right now, forsaking all, taking up our cross, and following Him?

Christian Mythology: 10. Prayer – Myth: God hears everyone’s prayers all the time

2010-12-06T14:47:00.000-08:00

Most of us learn to pray by example. As children, "Now I lay me..." is probably familiar. As adults, "Let's pray about it," is the usual preface. Neither phrase is Biblical. We pray for a lot of things we have no business praying for. Much of it is personal responsibility. Why pray for something that God has already empowered us, gifted us, and willed us to do? Why ask for help? This is just a demonstration of unbelief.

God says, "Repent." He even gives us the gift though His goodness to do so. Why then ask God to help us repent? This only shows our unwillingness and maybe withholding of something God has asked us to give up.

Dr. Adrian Rogers of Love Worth Finding asked, "Why should I pray for some Christian's health when all they'll do is run back out and serve the devil?" He goes on to say, "We spend more time praying to keep Christians out of heaven than we do sinners out of hell." Sometimes our priorities get all screwed up. There is a time to pray for health. There is a time to intercede on someones behalf for repentance. There is a time to pray without ceasing.

The key to all aspects of pray goes back to our one relationship to God. Keep that right and everything else works right too. Let sin in and immediately either our prayers go silent or they fall on God's deaf ears. Don't pray for God to give you victory over sin. He already did. Jesus died, was buried, and rose again. It is finished. There is our victory at Calvary once and for all. Prayer without ceasing works seamlessly with our one relationship to God.

Christian Mythology: 9. Idolatry – Myth: 9. The idols of the Bible aren’t around anymore

2010-12-05T15:10:00.000-08:00

If we don't see the golden calves, the Ashdarods, and the other idols of the Old Testament around anymore, then what's left? Sometimes when God speaks in parables the plain truth glares as well. Look at Psalm 115:8 and Psalm 135:18 - "They that make them are like unto them; so is every one that trusteth in them." Compare this with Genesis 3:22 - "And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us...." What is the connection?

When the sin nature came upon us through Adam, we became gods. With the knowledge of good and evil came the will do live, think, and believe as we see fit. We no longer desire or need God for what we believe we can do for ourselves. In effect, we became idols to ourselves. We are like the things we create in expression of our idolatry. The effects are devastating.

Examine Isaiah 6:9-10. This short passage is reiterated three times in the New Testament in Matthew 13:13-15, Mark 4:11-12, and Acts 28:26-27. Jesus spoke in parables but sometimes the truth glared right in our eyes. We can't see because our eyes became blind to anyone or anything but our SELVES. Sometimes the truth rang right in our ears. We can't hear because our ears became deaf to anyone or anything but our SELVES.

We are the idols. We have been around since day six of the beginning.

We don't need to be cured of the idols of our hands. They are deaf, dumb, and blind. We are living souls, created in the image of God. He desires to put our god-self-idols to death through the death of Jesus Christ. That is the only way we can become one with God again.

Christian Mythology: 8. Hell – Myth: Hell won’t be so bad

2010-12-03T14:18:00.001-08:00

Preachers give way too much credit to hell. I hear things like this all the time:

“When you ___ for God, all the power of hell will come against you to stop you.”

“Satan will use all the power in hell to ____.”

True, Satan himself is extremely powerful. But hell? No. Hell is just a place. It is a terrible place created for Satan and his demon angels.

Satan does not use hell as a weapon. Sometimes preachers use hell as a weapon. In addition to the examples above, they use hell to scare people into heaven. That doesn’t work. That’s not the gospel.

Satan does not reside in hell. Right now he spends time between earth and heaven. He is no longer the beautiful Lucifer angel of light. He no longer reflects the glory of God. But he still has access to the throneroom of God. He is still under the supreme control and authority of God.

Satan knows what hell is. He knows why it is there. But he won’t go until he is cast there in chains for a millennium. God tells us in Isaiah 14 that Satan was cast down to earth. He is here now spreading lies. Sadly, he is allowed to use the church, preachers, and false teachers to spread lies about himself and hell. He is the father of lies. He is a murderer.

All humans are conceived in sin. As soon as the sperm and egg unite, a sin nature is part of that very first cell. From that moment, all humans are condemned to hell. Apart from the saving grace of God through the blood atonement of Jesus Christ, hell is guaranteed. We are completely oblivious to this until God quickens us to life. We spend our entire lives unaware that hell awaits us at death. In our own power, effort, or wisdom, there is no escaping this reality. It is the certain future of everyone apart from God.

Most folks have a pretty good idea of what hell is. Fire, brimstone, smoke, pain, and punishment are the main ingredients. They mistakenly believe that is all future. No need to worry about it now. It’s probably a myth anyway. What folks don’t know is the true reality of hell. It begins with the planting of the sin nature at conception.

The sin nature separates us from God. We have no knowledge of Him as Abba Father. We have not His indwelling Holy Spirit. We have not the blood of His Son applied to save us from our sin nature. We remain unaware of this separation until one of two events happens. Either we die and wind up right in hell or God quickens us to life through the cross of Jesus Christ.

We suffer the consequences of this separation every day of our earthly lives. God uses this power to draw us to Himself. He does not desire that anyone perish. But He will not tolerate sin in His holy presence. He won’t take us to heaven when we die just because He loves us.

Hell has no power to bring somebody to salvation. Nor does hell have any power to prevent the will of God. It is powerless to thwart the works of Christians. The power of hell is its created purpose to eternally punish sinners. They will forever know that they are separated from God. They will know it did not need to be that way. Jesus died to save us from our sin. Amen.

Christian Mythology: 7. Heaven – Myth: Heaven is a wonderful place

2010-12-02T12:11:00.000-08:00

Whether at funerals, church gatherings, or personal conversations, Christians express such a longing for heaven. Rather than focus on some of the negatives of the present heaven such as:

Satan still goes there sometimes;
There is still knowledge of pain, sorrow, hell, and travail on earth there, and;
It will be destroyed one day:

I want to show you something so wonderful that very few Christians experience yet is available to every brother and sister in Christ.

Paul described an event in 2 Corinthians 12:1-5 where he spent some time in heaven. I won’t take this out of context and tell you that the circumstances which led to this will happen to all of us. I pray that they would! Rather, I want to take you to the throne of God in heaven by the way Jesus provided to each of us.

This is a very logical thing yet very real. Think about these things:

God is in heaven right now. Jesus is seated at His Father’s right hand.
When Jesus died, the veil in the temple was torn in two.
By Jesus’ blood we have bold access to the holy of holies (God’s presence).
When we pray, we are literally in the presence of God.
Therefore, when we are in the presence of God, we are in heaven.

Well how does that work? Clearly we are planted firmly here on earth in our mortal bodies. Yes we are. But our spirits are in heaven right now and always.

When God saved us, He quickened our spirits and took them to heaven (“that where I am there you may be also”). He left behind His indwelling Holy Spirit within each of us. This is the Spirit to spirit connection which makes prayer possible and direct to our Father.

So you see, we can go to heaven anytime we want to. We don’t have to wait for our mortal bodies to die. We only have to die to self, maintain that vital spiritual relationship to God, and thus enable prayer without ceasing. We can spend as much time in heaven as we desire.

Now you can understand why Paul said some of the things he did in the passage above:

“…whether in the body…or out of the body, I cannot tell”

“caught up into paradise”

“of such a one I will glory (Jesus)”

Christian Mythology: 4. Judgment – Myth: Christians don’t have to face judgment

2010-12-02T12:10:00.000-08:00

Oops. Sorry I went out of order. I accidentally deleted this entry a few days ago.

Judgment happens all the time in God’s kingdom. Most of it is criticism. The problem is we don’t know how to properly wield discernment. Nobody likes to get criticized. We try to soften the blow by delivering “constructive” criticism. I don’t know about you, but this kind hurts too. I also know that when the Holy Spirit judges me, this hurts more than anything. We need to get used to the pain when it comes from God.

Like dying to self daily (or as often as necessary), we also persevere under the judgment of God. These things are for our good and His glory. They are utterly good and necessary for the Christian. Yet they can be either impossible or simple to do.

If the Spirit is prompting you about some sin in your life then the following things are true:

The sin is present and therefore so are its consequences.
The old man of the flesh is alive.
The Holy Spirit is quenched and grieved.
The judgment of God or the mercy of God is imminent. We don’t get to pick.

Regardless, the action required on our part remains the same. We need mercy. We deserve judgment. To obtain mercy and avoid judgment quickly we must repent.
This is impossible as long as we don’t feel like it. That’s usually what happens to me. I just don’t feel like it. The consequences of judgment aren’t too bad (yet) so I can put up with it for a while. I’m perfectly satisfied to wrestle with flesh and blood (my own) instead of waging warfare in the heavenlies. Satan is quite happy for me to stay this way. It keeps me out of his way.

Some Christians say God does not judge His children at all. I don’t want a Father like that. I want a Daddy Who loves me and does what is necessary on His part to bring me back into loving fellowship with Him – even if it hurts.

It is simple to get back to that state when the flesh and blood wrestling stops and we humble ourselves before God in repentance and forsaking of sin. Immediately we do, the judgment stops, the prompting of the Holy Spirit stops, the pain stops, and the joy begins anew.

This is the message we need to give one another when God provides discernment about a brother or sister who is in sin. He does not give discernment so we may criticize, give opinions, or provide solutions. He does it so we may intercede by bringing the blood of Jesus upon the situation. Let the pressure of God’s Spirit increase so that sin may decrease (to zero!).

6. Good Works – Myth: Christians need to get right to work after salvation

2010-12-01T12:42:00.000-08:00

My wife and teenage son went to a local restaurant for lunch yesterday. Their waiter was a teenager, probably the same age as my son. Each step of the meal seemed to have a built-in delay. First they waited to be seated in an empty restaurant. Then they waited to get menus. They already knew what they wanted and were ready to order. Instead, the waiter walked away. Ten minutes later he came back with waters. When the meals finally arrived a half hour later the fries were soggy cold, the burgers congealing globs of fat. Dessert was late too, tiny dollops of ice cream no longer frozen but sloppy puddles with fudge swirls and a cherry sunk in the middle. By this time my wife and son would be late for an afternoon appointment. My wife asked the waiter to bring the check with the dessert so things could hurry along. He failed to bring it until another fifteen minutes expired. Rather than pay him directly, my wife took the check to the front cashier. The station was unmanned until who but the waiter appears to ring her up. He meekly apologized for the delay.

I remember my first job as a teen working at fast-food restaurant. I had no idea what to do. The manager was so busy trying to maintain order in the chaos of the grand opening that he had no time to train me or any of the other teens running the store. He didn’t last long as the manager. I didn’t last long as a burger flipper.

I suspect the poor kid at the restaurant experienced the same thing.

The same thing happens when we put newborn Christians to work in God’s kingdom. As they interact with the world and the church, mistakes, delays, and other bad experiences transpire. Experience is not a good teacher. Disciple-makers are God’s commanded teachers.

A newborn is helpless in the kingdom except for one thing. They have an overflowing exhuberance of joy in their salvation. Let them use that to the utmost in witnessing to the power and person of Jesus. They are perfectly suited for that job. But teaching Sunday School? Discipling other believers? Going to the mission field? No. They are not ready. No matter how many degrees they have, what church they grew up in, who their friends are. Newborns need one thing – to satisfy their natural desire to grow on the milk of God’s Word. They need to spend time with Jesus.

A fine-dining experience is extremely satisfying and refreshing. There is no reason a few simple techniques cannot be taught even to teenagers working counter service. But time, teaching, and some travail are necessary in order to produce workers fit for God’s kingdom service. Jesus is our headmaster. He commands us to make disciples. At the same time, we should be under the discipleship of someone else for the duration of our lives.

The worst that can happen is the wreckage of lives we leave behind. My wife and son certainly won’t return to that restaurant soon. Sometimes we get only one chance to sow seed. Let’s make sure the field is ready, the plow is straight, and the seed is pure.

5. Righteousness – Myth: Christians are still sinners after salvation

2010-12-01T12:41:00.000-08:00

About twenty years ago a newborn Christian couple, friends of mine, asked me to teach them how to study the Bible. Since the Bible they owned “only” had the Old and New Testaments, I showed them mine. It also had a concordance, dictionary, and some maps.

“Here’s what you really need to study the Bible,” I said. I took them to familiar passages and then homed in on keywords to look up in Greek or Hebrew. Somewhere around “alpha/aleph” my friends fell asleep. No more Bible lessons from me.

Michael Spencer described a similar event in his book, Mere Churchianity. God save a young woman in Spencer’s church. He struggled with how to disciple her. He could set her up with some ministry groups, send her to a women’s Bible study, introduce her to the prayer partners, or all the above and more that we commonly do in church. Instead, he gave her a Bible and told her to go away by herself and read it. He encouraged her to spend time with Jesus and get to know Him.

A while ago I asked friends on Facebook what would happen to their Christian lives if they had no Bible. Most stated that life would become very bad. I wonder why. I have friends in the Chinese mission field. They consistently report that the Chinese have very few Bibles. They may have but a page. Yet they are the most vibrant Christians. No one can deny that these saints know Jesus and spend a lot of time with Him. Like the apostles in Acts who were just ignorant and unlearned fishermen, the rulers could not deny that they had been with Jesus.

Jesus spent a lot of time with sinners. After He saved some of them, He still spent time with them. But something else amazing happened after their salvation. Jesus called them friends. He called them saints. Never again did He call them sinners.

We need to spend a lot less time going to church and a lot more time being with Jesus. He is all our righteousness every moment of every day. Abide in Him.

Christian Mythology: 3. Jesus – Myth: He saved us from hell to take us to heaven

2010-11-28T07:45:00.000-08:00

Why does God save us?

Kaoru Ishikawa was a Japanese master of the quality sciences. He has a particular measurement tool named after him - the Ishikawa Diagram. This simple seven-legged diagram helps us to determine the root cause of a problem or process. It answers the question "Why?" Sometimes folks augment this diagram with another simple tool called the "Five Whys". To figure out why something happened (at the root), one asks the question "Why?" to each response. Usually after five rounds, the root cause surfaces.

For instance, parents use this question often when a child misbehaves. "Why did you do that?" A childlike answer usually follows. As Christians, we all should know that the root cause of all bad behavior is our sin nature. This could logically lead us to a conclusion about how to fix the bad behavior of our children. Get them saved and God will fix them up.

Is that why God saves us? To make us better people? You take a look around and answer that question for yourself. Granted, Jesus indeed saves some folks from their wicked ways. Deliverance from drugs, alcohol, anger, and such is quite common. But these are all effects of salvation. They are not the why.

Many people preach about heaven and hell. Scare children enough with talk about hell and every hand will go up at the salvation invitation. Is that why God saves us? To keep us from hell? While it is true that we escape that certain condemnation, it is nonetheless an effect of salvation.

On the other hand, folks hung up on the "God is love" thing are delighted to go forward at the invitation. Of course they want to go to heaven. Who doesn't? But is our heavenly destiny why God saved us? No. It is an effect.

All these things are wonderful effects of salvation. They are all certain. But they are not the answer to why God saved us. Take a careful look at them again. Notice who the effect is on for each one. Us. What about God? While God is glorified in these effects, the focus is nonetheless on us. What's in it for God?

That is what leads us to the answer of why He saves. That is what leads us to the power of preaching. That is what points us to the single thing which should dominate our minds, speech, and actions. That is the cross of Jesus Christ.

God saves us because Jesus died and shed all His blood. That is what saves us from our sin nature. That is what delivers us from our sins. Nothing but the blood from Calvary.

All other preaching is vain, man-centered, and dangerously leading hearers to no salvation at all. We must learn not to confuse a cleaned-up man with a blood-washed man. The former washes himself in filthy rags while the latter wears the spotless white linens of righteousness in Jesus Christ.

Christian Mythology: 2. Salvation – Myth: Salvation comes in many ways and many times

2010-11-27T05:01:00.000-08:00

Think about this accusation against Christianity. It comes from the Muslim world. Don't discount it now that you know the source. Christians have the Bible. Muslims have the Koran. All around the world the Bible may be found translated into hundreds, perhaps thousands of different languages. In the middle East, the Koran may be found in only one language, its original language, Arabic. True, you may find the Koran in other languages. But this accusation comes from those faithful, let's say radical, followers of Islam. (Don't get stuck on that word "radical" either. This isn't the media's radical. Think more along the lines of David Platt's book by the same name.)

The faithful, radical Muslim's number one issue with Christianity is the fact that we have made the holy Word of God impure by adopting all these translations. Along the way, we have lost its meaning. They consider this defilement. Even among their own, those who do not use the original text are considered lesser.

I suppose it would be difficult to find anyone who could speak and understand the original languages of the Bible (ancient Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic). I have a Greek friend at work and even he has a hard time with the ancient Greek language. I have asked him for help on translating a few times without success.

While I don't necessarily agree with the accusation, there is a point to it. Americans, it seems, find it easy to superimpose their own words and interpretations upon the Word of God. We substitute experience for reality. We tell a story instead of relying upon the power of God. Nowhere is this more evident than in salvation.

There is a great danger in adding to or taking away from God's Word. Hellfire is one of those dangers. When we tell sinners to "ask Jesus into your heart", or "pray the sinner's prayer", we take the very lives of these hell-certain people into our own hands. Salvation comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. These phrases are not the Word of God. They are not real. They are a death sentence. We fall asleep when we do not rightly divide the Word of God. We ensure the permanent sleep of the sinner when we do not use God's Word aright.

Christian Mythology: Church – Myth: Church is for everybody, saved and unsaved

2010-11-26T05:13:00.000-08:00

I realize this book will provoke some readers. It will also provoke thought in others. Thinking is required here because the things you read about are subtle. Sin is usually just that way. If it were blatant, surely Christians would jump right on it and do something about it. But you will see over these next thirty days that much of what you thought was normal at church is not God's desire, intention, or design. You can decide for yourselves whether you believe sin is involved. However, I will say this: where you find subtlety and confusion, there you will also find temptation. Sin is never far behind.

Most American churches practice an open door policy. Sinners are welcome. How do you feel about that? If you, a righteous Christian, go to church to worship God, how is that experience affected by the presence of evil? Pay very close attention to the words now.

You know what the world often says about going to church. "I won't go there. I wouldn't want to be a Christian. After all, they're just a bunch of hypocrites."

Have you ever been to church where everybody is all dressed up? The women in their Sunday finest of skirt, blouse, and hat? The men in suit, shirt, and tie? Even the children look their best. This is not uncommon. Until a street person walks in. Dirty, unwashed, soiled clothing, reeking of the world. How do you react? Are they welcome in your church? Jesus welcomed them to Himself.

God told us that His kingdom is a mix of wheat and tares, sheep and goats, saved and unsaved. That is surely a picture of the world today. But it is not a picture of the Church Body of our Lord Jesus Christ. There is a difference between the church organization that we all know and the Church Body of our Lord Jesus Christ known by but a few.

Church organizations put on big shows and hope the world will show up to hear a message. The Body of Jesus goes into the world with just the Gospel and begs God's Spirit will quicken the dead to new life in Jesus.

Church organizations welcome everybody to worship. The Church Body worships God in spirit and truth, dressed in the beauty of holiness. Sin and sinners are not welcome. Neither a Christian in sin nor a sinner dead in sin can worship God. There is no holiness in sin. Sin departs a Christian through God's gift of repentance which draws on the cleansing power of the blood of Jesus Christ shed on the cross.

Christian Mythology - Introduction

2010-11-25T16:02:00.000-08:00

For the next thirty-one days, I will post some extras about each chapter of my newly completed manuscript "Christian Mythology". This book began about 8-10 years ago when God woke me up. That's a phrase you don't hear much in church or Christian circles. It is a Biblical term. It applies to Christians who God wakes up from sin sleep. No big sin really. Nothing drastic or worthy of the tabloids. My life was quite like any other, normal in fact. I was just like most every other Christian. So why would I suspect that anything was wrong?

Well, apparently, a lot of Christians do think something is wrong. They just don't know what it is or why it is happening. But the result of their feelings and attitudes is a max exodus from churches across America. Christians are on the move either out of church altogether or church-hopping with greater frequency. This is all according to a Pew poll published about a year ago.

I believe the root cause of all this is sin. I knew it was true in my life. I knew it was true in the lives of two other men who were faithful brothers in the Lord. We went through the wakeup process together. Sin was at the root of it all.

God woke me up the day I read Ephesians 5:25-27. I have read this passage many times in my 25 years as a Christian. But this time for some reason the power of God was behind it and He said, "Wake up." I realized I am the Bride. I realized Jesus is coming soon. I realized I was not pure, spotless, and blameless. I realized I did not want Him to find me that way. I realized I was no better than the day Jesus saved me.

Suddenly God poured out His Word upon me in great teaching, conviction, and cleansing. I wrote it all down. I shared it with my friends. I prayed through it. I watched God produce tremendous fruit from it in our lives together. At the same time however, I became even more discouraged with church. I still felt like one of those who wanted to leave altogether or find another one.

I looked around for a while. Finally my wife convinced me that I would not find what I was looking for. There is no perfect church. This is true. Then I realized something else. I really wasn't looking for a perfect church. What I want is a perfect Church Body. I wanted Jesus and the people He has awakened. Together, we function to worship Him, witness in His Name, and make disciples who follow Him.

That's all the good stuff I wrote about in the sequel "The Remnant". All the hard stuff is in this first book "Christian Mythology". It's all about the stuff in church that we teach and believe that is false, unbiblical, and puts us to sleep. If you find that hard to believe, then read the New Testament again. The harshest words of Jesus started against the religious institutions. His words of warning at the end of the Bible were against the church - Repent!

For the next thirty days I want to encourage you to come here daily. You will find out the meaning of "stop going to church and start being the Church Body." I pray along the way that if you are in sin sleep, God will wake you up to a glorious purpose He has for you.

Published and Writing

2010-11-24T15:58:00.000-08:00

I self-published my first book ten years ago. Earlier this fall my first story appeared in a book anthology published by Guideposts. Last weekend I submitted my first manuscript to two agents and one editor - publication pending!

My wife and I like to sneak out for dinner dates about once a week. Tonight we enjoyed an early-bird dinner in a packed restaurant. I quipped about such a large crowd eating a heavy meal the night before Thanksgiving. Who am I to talk though since I had a crock of French Onion soup and a wonderful rare sesame-crusted tuna steak. My wife chided me to put away my Droid which I constantly check as I anticipate the cherished email from the agents/editors to send the full manuscript.

Instead we talked about writing. I shared with her the common ailments of writers. We write differently than we speak and think. As I edited my final manuscript, I removed hundreds of passive voice sentences. At work we compose thousands of Powerpoint slides for customer presentations. Even engineers write and later edit out those pesky passives. Even worse, our style guide requires us to remove all noun modifiers. Microsoft spell and grammar check sure becomes handy over thousands of pages.

Novice writers also write with a tendency towards the imperative case. The word "must" shows up a lot along with too many exclamation points. My wife's coupon blogger friend re-wrote an entire article because of this. The frugal homemaker and her husband saved a bundle by paying for their house in cash. The way she wrote the article caused quite the negative stir among her faithful readers. She sounded arrogant. Why? Because she didn't tell the story. Instead she wrote the process and the facts. It sounded cold-hearted and proud to the readers who know this kind, compassionate Christian woman. They felt guilty for not doing what their coupon guru did. So they let her know it. She quickly learned to show her story instead of tell it.

She told her readers about how she and her husband lived frugally in a trailer for six months. Meanwhile, they haggled with every contractor and DIY salesperson for the best price. Her husband, a lawyer, drove a beat-up old car even though he could afford a Mercedes. By all appearances, they lived at poverty level for eight years on a six-figure income in order to ultimately pull off what they did. It was not magic. It was hard work. When she told the story by showing these details, her readers understood the real "how-to". They felt much better. They forgave her.

I removed so much of the imperative from my manuscript. I did not want to though. Its message is urgent. But if I think about it, the message I wrote is thousands of years old. Its urgency is no lesser or greater today than when God said, "You must be saved." (Wow - a passive voice and imperative all in one little sentence.) Nevertheless, the style that sell books is the style that shows a good story. Funny then that the Bible is still the best-selling book of all time. It is full of passive voice, imperatives, run-on sentences, tons of semi-colons, and other items that would not pass the Chicago Manual of Style. I'm sure God knew what He was doing though. I hope the inspiration He gave me for "Christian Mythology" will also powerfully guide readers to the Truth of Jesus Christ.

Follow Me

2010-11-08T12:47:00.000-08:00

Jesus walked into my cube today. He said, “Follow me.” I thought about the other times He spoke those words. In those days He still walked the earth in physical form. Peter and John dropped their fishing nets and immediately went with Jesus. They did not know where He was going. They did not ask questions. They left their father behind to continue the family business. As far as I could tell from reading God’s Word, these men forsook everything and followed Jesus. Later on Peter demanded from Jesus reparations due him for leaving everything behind. He wanted to know, ‘what’s in it for me?’ Jesus replied, “For the kingdom of God’s sake, you’ll get more in this life, and eternal life in the next world.”

Matthew left his job as tax collector. No questions asked. No knowledge of the future. Like Peter and John, he may not have ever seen or heard of Jesus before now. I have the luxury of God’s Word to tell me all that happened next. What about me though? I sit here pondering my answer. I know where Jesus went after He called His disciples. I know what He did, said, thought, felt, and ultimately endured. I know a little bit about what He does today but that is a rather sketchy. If I follow Him, I will do it blindly, just like those first men. There is one major difference however.

Jesus picked these guys up and remained for the most part in familiar territory. He met them at the Sea of Galilee. The first places they visited together were the familiar Galileean synagogues and then the surrounding mountains. The men probably felt comfortable in these places. Maybe they didn’t know where Jesus was going or what He was doing, but they certainly knew where they were. I don’t know what questions went through their minds when Jesus said, “Follow me.” But I do know they didn’t have to worry about hopping on a plane, getting in a car, taking a train, checking email and phone messages, or any other modern string like we have. They just dropped their nets and left their father. We don’t even know if they said goodbye. We can surmise that by following Jesus, they knew that in the short term at least, they weren’t going very far.

I’m not too worried about where He would lead me. I’ve been all around the world, eaten lots of strange food, slept in some pretty nasty places. I’m sure there’s worse but that doesn’t really phase me. Like those men, I have a job and family. Jesus said, “If you don’t hate your family and your own life, then take up your cross and follow me, cannot be my disciple.” I think it all comes down to one simple question. The question is simple because the situation is simple. If I really leave everything behind, all I have left is Jesus Himself and some level of faith and trust that He will do everything He says. It would be like climbing a sturdy tree, crawling out on a main branch, hanging onto a limb, grasping a twig, then finding all that’s left are filaments of carbon nanotubes. They are invisible to the naked eye. Science tells me they are stronger than steel. But I’m about to plummet and cannot see or sense in any other tangible way something to grab. Like Peter in the middle of the sea, I start to see the waves even though Jesus is standing right in from of me. Common sense says that if I grab for Him, we both go under. Jesus chided Peter for his doubt and little faith.

Right now Jesus knows what I am thinking. He hasn’t said another word since, “Follow me.” No coercion. I wonder if He ever called anyone else like that and they didn’t follow. God’s Word does not say. But it does talk about the many who left Jesus because they were offended by Him. They would not forsake their religion and tradition which told them how to get to God. Jesus said He was the only way.

Can I get to God and still continue on my current path? Is He in my office? Is He where I work? Does He have any interests here such that if I arose and followed, He would remain in this familiar place? What would He have me to do? What would He do while I followed? Would I be like the disciples and ask a lot of dumb questions? Would I be so thick-headed to rarely get the point of what Jesus was saying and doing such that He had to explain most everything twice to me, once in a parable and then again in plain language? Then He would teach the same thing all over again the next day and for the next three and a half years. Even after His resurrection some of them still doubted. It seems like they really didn’t get Jesus until He breathed on them and gave them the Holy Ghost. Suddenly these men were bold. God did all things through them. They took credit for nothing, still forsaking all, still hating their own lives, still taking their crosses and following Jesus. But how did they recognize Him and follow Him now that they could not walk in His footsteps? How did they know where to go and what to say?

Jesus said He filled me with His Holy Spirit too. So why am I so different from the post-resurrection disciples? Why do I feel like I’m still Peter sinking fast?

What compelled these men to follow Jesus in the first place? Why did they stick with Him? At one point they all forsook Him. But after that Holy Ghost filling it seems like they never turned back. But some others did. Ananias, Sophira, Demas, are infamous examples. Have I blown it so badly that I’m like one of them? Or what about the countless thousands who God saved and filled with the Holy Ghost in those early days. I never read about them again. Were they as bold as Peter and John? Did they go on to be like Paul in other parts of the world? Did God choose not to record their acts in His Word but only in His books of judgment? Or were they like me – unsure, questioning, always studying, hoping I’m doing it right, groping forward, falling backward, wondering if God is really there, if I’m really filled with the Spirit, if Jesus will really do more than could be recorded in books which the world could not contain?

Are these the questions of a faithless man? Unconvinced? Fearful? Pragmatic? All the above and very confused at times. And all the while Jesus stands there waiting for my answer. I start to wonder if His patience will run low and He will walk away, never to ask again, never to hear a yes or no from me, not available to answer some clarifying questions. As a father, my patience is short and I force my children to reckon with me. They always get the choice to answer or clarify. They always receive a list of consequences depending upon their ultimate choice. That doesn’t seem like Jesus at all. Sometimes His choices are black and white. Many times I sense gray, left to myself to decide with no compelling evidence to sway me either way. Just like the question before me now. While the answer may be simple, there is no compelling reason to decide either way. I’m stuck grasping, gasping, failing, again.

Why did He make this question so hard? It feels like the Groundhog Day of final exams. I keep getting the question over and over until I answer it. Who knows what will happen next depending upon my answer. Am I afraid of the answer itself? Is it wise to take this long to answer? Maybe if I ignore Him He will just go away. What if I try to change the subject to stall for time? What would we talk about? What could possibly interest Him? He makes me so uncomfortable just standing there. Can’t He come back tomorrow, leave a message, put it in an email instead? Get with the 21st century? Shouldn’t He check with my wife and kids first? My mom would certainly have an opinion about it.

Maybe all He expects is an answer of affirmation but not actual commitment at this time. Sure, I’m willing to go. But since you don’t seem to be in any hurry I guess we don’t have to leave right now. I can follow later. There, that feels much better. I took the pledge, signed the card, showed up for attendance. Now I can get back to whatever I was doing before this whole dissertation came to my mind, obviously something of much greater than importance than following Jesus. Couldn’t He tell that I was busy? Doesn’t He know that it’s rude to interrupt? Why can’t people respect my time and space? Hey, wait a minute! Where are you going?

“Many who say to me, Lord, Lord….”

“Do ya know me Bert? Ha ha! Whaddaya know about that Bert? My mouth’s bleedin’. My mouth’s bleedin’! Merry Christmas!”

“Unless I see the nailprints in his hands, and his side, I won’t believe.”

Take up your cross and follow me. A dead man has no claim to anything. Being dead makes it easy to forsake all. Nothing matters to a dead person. The instant you revive who do you see? That is the one you will follow. When Jesus died, He left it all behind – family, friends, familiarity. That’s what He brings to us in the new life – nothing but Himself. He is not standing here with an offer of door #1, #2, or #3. He is the door. He is on the other side of the door. There has to be more to the exclusivity of Jesus. After all He is King of kings, Lord of lords, creator God of the universe. Everything is His to give liberally as He wants to . Why oh why do I seem to want all the goodies and not the giver? Just Him and for ever after just let Him dish out what He wants to in order to accomplish His purposes with me. Go ahead, surprise me Jesus. If it has to be just you I follow, then let there be a few surprises along the way okay?

Apparently that was not the answer He was looking for. He’s still standing there. At least tell me a parable or something. Explain it to me this call to follow you. Right now? Are there any rest breaks? Vacation? What is your preferred mode of transportation? I want to get around like Philip. He was caught up in the Spirit and somehow just transported around from place to place, materializing like some Star Trek officer.

It’s a day later and He’s still standing there and I’m still sitting here. This is worse than the Cold War. At least bring me a crisis so I can take some definite action. The call to “follow me” just doesn’t get the creative juices flowing, doesn’t pump my adrenaline. There is no urgency in His voice. No hinting gleam in His eye that some consequence awaits. No wink wink, nod nod. It’s not even a dangling participle, something I can grammatically correct. It’s a short sentence, clear, concise, coherent. I understand it perfectly. Hard as I try to add to, take away, or modify it, the simple meaning is clear. Follow me. Yea, and then what? Is this a contest of wills? Trying to see who’s fencepost is wider? While I totter from side to side, Jesus is perfectly still as if there is no precarious perch at all. He is quite well balanced on a wide plain, farther than the eye can see. Is there no tipping point with Him? Where’s the center of gravity, the fulcrum, the end of the lever? Maybe if He moves the perspective changes and with it everything else. What if I move Him? Rush Him just a bit to make Him flinch? Would that change His tune? I try it and it’s like I pass right through Him. He does not move. Is He real? A ghost? Or is He really fast, moving out of my way and then right back, imperceptible to my eyes? None of these seem fair. He has the Star Trek beam thing and I don’t.

There’s just no reckoning with Him on this plane. I’m wondering if He even knows what I am writing or thinking. Probably does. Problem is, I don’t know what He is thinking. This field is not fair. How do I change the game? Is that even possible? Let me ask Him whether He would consider changing it.

Is He thinking about it? No word. Still no word. I need a potty break. Time out. Be right back. I check all my room sensors – pressure? No movement; camera? Stood there the whole time; sound bug? Not a peep. At least He blinked. I am beginning to think that this is entirely up to me. Nothing happens until I decide one way or the other. Perfect Newtonian physics law #1, 2, and 3 all in one. He won’t move until I move first. He won’t move. I’m quickly deteriorating. Is the entropy taking me to the chaos of my own life or the order of His? Do I trust Einstein or Hawking for that one? No, no, no. This is not a science test. And I never took a class in the spiritual things. Although I remember a girl once in high school who was into metaphysics. That still sounds weird. A contradiction. But that’s almost what is going on here. Nothing seems to adhere to the rules with Jesus around. Everything is a contradiction to what I know and believe.

Therefore, I would love for Him to just strip all that preconceived stuff from my brain. Help me to unlearn all the wrong things. Purge the bad thoughts. In with the good air, out with the bad. C’mon breathe stupid breathe! You forgot to breathe! I seem to recall something about being transformed by the renewing of one’s mind. Is that what this is all about? Do I do that first and then answer? He won’t say. Another stupidly injected prerequisite on my part. Sorry. This is getting old.

Follow me. Paul said that. Follow me as I follow Jesus Christ. Nervy guy. How did he figure it out? Hey, is there anybody out there? Anyone at all who has done this? What was it like? What did you say in reply? What happened next? What did Jesus do? How about you? Was your experience the same? No? That doesn’t sound like what happened to you either?

I wonder if I can call this a tie. How about a truce, a cease-fire, a draw? What do we have to do here Jesus to make this a win-win? Anything to sweeten the pot? Do I need to cut costs somewhere? Add a few features? What about you? Here I am back at Peter’s question. Suppose I follow you. What’s in it for me? It really drives me nuts to get back to the same point after a thousand words. Wasted breath. Tired fingers. Taxed grey matter. I haven’t the energy to even burn off the frustration. No desire to even sleep on it. And it just won’t go away if ignored. Any normal person would have given up long ago. How can he stand there like a statue just waiting for me? So calm. Serene. His face is hard to describe because it changes appearance constantly yet remains constantly the same.

Folks talk like that when they look at the Mona Lisa. But this is even more. I’m looking into the face of the eternal Son of God. Not at. Into. Kinda through. It’s a face of love. Then it’s a face of fire. Then the face of a lamb. An innocent lamb. The a face as blue as the sky, yet full of storm clouds one moment, wispy clouds of spring the next. Each face is indescribably pleasant. No fear there. No expression of anger, judgment, or wrath. Even that face of fire is just the warm glow of a wintry hearth or a campfire surrounded by friends. That’s the one that gets to me. He beckons me to sit by Him and join the silent mates. They look at one another. They look at Him. Each one knows. They know. I can see it in their eyes. Their expressions all read the same. We’re all one here.

Wait, what’s this vision? A campfire on the other side? Is that what you saw? No? A beachhouse with those same people gathered? A crowded city street where they’re gathered around silently watching a sidewalk chalk artist? But you all see the same people, just in different places at different times? I don’t get it. But they are all happy. Wouldn’t have it any other way. None of them are bored, scared, confused, or regretful. None of them look the other way. They all look at one another and yet at the same time they all look at Jesus. One. The simplicity is beautiful. It draws me. Entices me.

Is that the look Jesus gave to Peter, Andrew, John, and the rest when He said, “Follow me?” Did they look into His eyes when He called? Or did they just hear His voice, not yet taking their eyes off their nets, change tables, or tents? Was His voice just as tender as those eyes? He only asked me once. He only asked them once. Do they remember His voice still? Do I? Wait a minute and let me bring it back. He said I should know His voice because I am His sheep. It should ring distinctive, unique, and clear above any other voice or noise I hear. Did it come through like that? Definitely. I would not have spent two-thousand words on it otherwise. If you are reading this I hope you just skimmed to this point to read the end. I hope you answered Jesus way back in the beginning. I hope you did not have to live through all my pain added to your own. I certainly would not want to endure your story of getting to “yes” with Jesus. I just want to know that you got there.

I just joined the campfire. Now I’m looking at the ones in the circle and we’re all looking at Jesus. Not even paying attention to you anymore. Suddenly it’s just me and Jesus. I no longer see outside. The door is closed. It’s a Matrix kind of thing. I went through the door with Jesus. The door is no longer there. I don’t even have to turn around to check. I’m following Jesus. I can see His form surrounding me and sense His presence within me. My body does not even look the same. There is this translucent aura around me. I’m not following Jesus behind Him watching every step, pausing every so often to see where He is and where He is headed. I’m not walking by His side and certainly not in front. And I’m definitely not walking on that sandy beach with just the one set of footprints that are really His. It’s still me. It’s still Him. We are one. My size-11’s are His. His sandals are mine. We fit into one another perfectly, yet I only see Him. That we may be One and I may behold His glory. Follow me.

Example, Education, or Expire?

2010-10-24T13:41:00.000-07:00

Today in Sunday School we studied I Peter 2:21-25. The teacher enacted a graphic portrayal of "getting in someone's face" in order to get them to revile. First he had to find out if anybody knew what the word "revile" meant since we don't use it too much anymore. Here's a thesaurus synonym I like - to attack with words.

Peter, an eyewitness to the trials of Jesus, said Jesus never reviled anyone. Even though our teacher only made an example, I could see in his eyes (and he confessed along with yours truly and others in the class) that he has reviled folks many times when they got in his face. But Jesus never did.

What are we supposed to do with that information? The KJV states that Jesus' actions are an example for us. What exactly does that mean - example? First a little background:

God says that in a very real way we were crucified with Christ, nevertheless we live (Galatians 2:20). What is the extent of that crucifixion? Does it include the events leading up to it? We know for sure it includes the cross and the resurrection. But what about when the Pharisees, the Sadducess, Romans, and others got in His face? They spit on Him, slapped Him, punched Him, ripped His beard, mocked Him, scourged Him, stripped Him naked. He did nothing just like a lamb led before its shearers.

Is this merely an example for us? Or perhaps it is just for our education.

I think it was written to us for our expiration. Only a man dead to himself can do this. Only a man full of the Spirit cannot revile. Only a man completely at one with God is capable. Jesus did not behave this way because He learned it by example or because someone taught it to Him in Hebrew school. Neither will be even come close to such godly behavior by mere example or education. Quite frankly I am no more motivated, willing, or able to withhold attacking someone with my words simply because of this lesson.

So it is with any Bible truth. We can't keep 617 laws. We can't obey even ten commandments. Even two commandments are too much. But with Jesus all things are possible. As we abide with Him as one with God, He obeys perfectly through us. Thereby we keep the whole law, obey all the commandments, and love God with our whole hearts.

My First Book

2010-10-20T15:14:00.000-07:00

Sometimes folks wonder what my first published book was. Or they wonder where the name of my website originated. Biblical Quality was my first book. In a previous professional life I was a Quality Manager. As a Christian, I put the two together. Each chapter of the book discusses a Biblical principle in light of business practice. At its core, Biblical Quality is an evangelical book. At first, it was a “how to” book. But then I realized that the Bible is not a “how to” book and therefore I should not use it as such. While it still is a book of principles, the truths only become evident in character as one submits to the Lord Jesus Christ.

That all sounds wonderful doesn’t it? Except when you read the book. Ten years ago I was so excited to finish writing the manuscript, find an inexpensive self-publisher, and certain of a huge market eager to fork out $10.95, that the raw manuscript went right to print. I never edited the work except to remove the conversion typos that happen when a file is pdf’d from MS Word. Fifteen years had gone by since I had looked at a grammar book. The Chicago Manual of Style Christmas present sat on the shelf unused. In other words, this book was a raw disaster. The content was great. The concept was market worthy. Naturally, many books of the same genre came out around the same time. While they sold from the shelves of Waldenbooks, Barnes & Noble, and Borders, Biblical Quality languished online at www.xlibris.com.

I learned a lot about writing since then and managed to sell a few articles. My next book project is nearly complete through its fifth editing round. I went to some writer’s conferences, attended classes, took notes, tweaked words, and read a lot of books on the craft. I especially paid attention to the teachers who knew what they were talking about. They are published – broadly. Not only can they write good books, they also can teach how to write good books. God put in my path such author/teachers as Cecil Murphey and Donald Maass. Working with them in person is great. Working from their written materials is hard work. Such is the “normal” life of an author.

If you are so inclined, then tap into some of their great “how to” books to help you along the way with your craft.

Cec has a great blog and website at www.themanbehindthewords.com

Donald has three fantastic books that I recommend: The Fire in Fiction, Writing the Breakout Novel, and Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook. Keep up to date with him at www.maassagency.com.

I also recommend, on the business side, getting to know Rachelle Gardner of WordServe Literary Agency. She is an avid blogger on all things literary. I strongly recommend that the Christian writer follow her advice, be a regular reader on her site, and also contribute comments to her for some worthwhile feedback. She’s at www.cba-ramblings.blogspot.com

Back in May I sat on a panel at a writer’s conference. The leader asked anyone who had ever self-published to share their experience. When I did it back in 2000, I was one of the first. XLibris was one of the first reputable online self-publishing houses. I still highly recommend their services for those who choose to go this route. The lessons learned above I shared again at the conference. The takeaway question was, “Would you do it again?” Not the next time. While I learned a lot from the experience, I care not to repeat those mistakes and I desire a mainstream publisher simply to provide that little extra edge of time and service which I do not have right now. I want to learn more from the agent/editor/publisher relationship. None of that exists in the self-publishing realm. You’re on your own all the way.

I sold maybe twenty copies of Biblical Quality and I doubt I will sell any more. One day perhaps I will re-write the book and get it published. In the meantime, I am learning how to and putting Biblical quality into my other works.

What is Christian Mythology?

2010-10-17T14:57:00.000-07:00

Someone at church asked me today about the progress of my book, Christian Mythology. Then they wanted to know what it is all about. For those of readers who are also authors, you know that part of a book proposal is the Competition. What recent books on the shelves are like your proposed book? Here's my competition list along with their amazon.com links so you can check them out. Most of them have free previews.

When I first started writing the book, there wasn't much competition. This concerned me because I wondered if this massive burden God put upon me was mine alone. But soon it was clear that God was working in the hearts of other authors with the same message;

Spencer, Michael, Mere Churchianity, Waterbrook Press, 2010

Sweet, Leonard; Viola, Frank, Jesus Manifesto: Restoring the Supremacy and Sovereignty of Jesus Christ, Thomas Nelson, 2010

Platt, David, Radical: Taking Back Your Faith From the American Dream, Multnomah Books, 2010

Mr. Viola has many other titles around the theme as well. These are all thought-provoking works. What sets mine apart from the competition is this mind-bending question:

What if we all stopped going to church? What if we stopped doing all the "churchy" things we are so familiar with, the traditions, the feel-good experiences, and instead, we started being the Church? What if started by doing and being exclusively those things explicitly found in the Bible? Nothing else? What would be different about us, our churches, and our reputations in the eyes of the world? Would we be more like Jesus?

Christian Mythology examines some of the thoughts, teachings, and beliefs in our American Christian culture and holds them up to Biblical authority. The three verses that God put on my heart for this book are:

Ephesians 5:25-27 - "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish." Is this how Jesus will find us at any moment?

Romans 6:11 - "Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord." Do we continually transact this before God and literally believe it?

I Corinthians 15:34a - "Awake to righteousness, and sin not."

God woke me up seven years ago and put this message on my heart and keyboard. He did the same for many others too. Are you awake? Do you hear what the Spirit of God is saying to the Church today? His message to the last seven churches was, "Repent, repent, repent." Shall we do likewise?

Take This Test

2010-10-04T15:22:00.000-07:00

What is your definition of worship? Come up with a simple one or two word definition. Got it? Now, get out your Bible and let's play a little Bible MadLibs. Every place you see the word worship in the following verses (KJV), insert your definition instead. Does the verse still make sense? Send your comments and then we'll discuss the results in my next post.

Matthew 2:1-2
Matthew 2:8

Okay, these first two were simple and there's a good chance your definition sounded pretty good. Carry on.

Matthew 4:8-10

Hmmm. Maybe not so good? How about these?

John 4:19-24

Does your definition now sound absurd perhaps? This is not a trick test. Each of the preceding verses uses the same word worship in the original language and in the same context.

Now post those comments. What questions or comments has this little test provoked about your thoughts on worship? Has your world suddenly turned upside down? Or did you fit right in? Are you wondering what worship really is if you feel like your definition flunked? If you feel like you passed, have you encouraged someone today to obey God's command as Jesus spoke it in Matthew 4? God bless you. See you soon with some interesting feedback.

How to Get on Praying Ground

2010-09-11T07:49:00.000-07:00

This classic sermon from Dr. Adrian Rogers should be mandatory for any discipleship 101 relationship. Listen in and then come on back to this blog for the rest of the story.

Click Here to Listen

The Scriptures he quoted are tough to take and he admits that. Read them again and then we will ponder a few more questions.

Isaiah 59:1-2
Psalm 66:18
Proverbs 15:29

We have talked about this subject a lot in this blog. Dr. Rogers examined the typical response of human nature when presented with these verses, "But my prayer is so beautiful...." He uses generic sarcasm to point out that the flesh can get in the way of our prayers. Proverbs 15:29 describes our flesh with a harsh term - wicked.

Human nature again steps in and violently denies the label, "No not me!" Or we would rather soften it a little with more seeker sensitive wording. But we cannot escape the fact that God calls us (in the flesh) wicked. Yes, Christians who walk in the flesh can be downright wicked. Evil. As Dr. Rogers points out again with no holding back, Christians in the flesh can be servants of the devil. He asks, "So why should I pray for you to be healed just so you can go on serving the devil?"

Ouch. What do we do with that? Allow the Word of God by the dagger of the Holy Spirit to do its Hebrews 4:12 work. It is a good thing from the goodness of God. Fight the urge to deny and see your flesh as God does, or allow Him to show you.

Even though we are saved, God did not do anything to our flesh. It is still the same as it was before Jesus saved us from our sins. It is still completely capable of wickedness, evil, and sin. The point Dr. Rogers (and I) want to get across is for us to recognize and admit the utter depravity of the flesh and its consequences. It's solution is simple - walk in the Spirit and you will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh (Galatians 5:16).

Rather than delve into just how wicked we can be, better I think it is to realize the consequences instead. It is enough that God will not hear our prayers. That means more than communication is shut off. It means that our "one" relationship with Him is also compromised (John 17:23). It feels almost like we are not saved. It feels just like we are wicked sinners again. The conscience feeling is correct. Don't ignore it. Instead, allow God to take it to its necessary conclusion - death.

I go back to what I have shared many times on this blog - die to self and sin (Romans 6:11). The victory over the flesh was enabled at the cross and it is our responsibility to do it - reckon yourself dead; I am crucified with Christ. Life in God only arises through death to the wicked flesh. If we let the flesh have its way, then I agree with Dr. Rogers. Why pray for things that will ultimately bring dishonor to God's name?

Pastor Rogers' next series on the Six Keys to Answered Prayer is an excellent follow-up. I encourage you to listen to that message as well. It's playing today here.

Japan or Philly. Which do I Prefer?

2010-08-16T16:08:00.000-07:00

I should have been in Japan right now. But instead, I attended the Greater Philadelphia Christian Writer's Conference. Japan was the plan before I lost my job. God had another plan. Her name is Marlene Bagnull, the founder and director of that conference.

You see, God really does talk to people these days. I mean He honest to goodness says personal things, stuff you don't find in the Bible. Last week Marlene e-mailed me and asked if I would attend the conference. I told her my story. She wrote back and said, "I am so glad Father nudged me to write to you." She didn't have to ask twice. I heard God's voice too and off I went.

Unlike the Colorado Christian Writer's Conference I attended back in May, this time I had no plan. I did not know why God wanted me to go. I never asked Him since I never intended to go up until one day before the start. God did not wait to tell me exactly why He wanted me there.

Wednesday night found Marlene up front before a small early-bird crowd of attendees. Her first words were something like this, "The Church is asleep. The problem is sin. Father has us here to write His answer to wake up the Church and bring Him the glory." You my readers know that this is my call. God had my full attention. Over the next three days He told me exactly what He wanted of me.

From the May conference He wanted me to finish up the Christian Mythology manuscript. Now He wants me full time. This has to be a commitment. The stakes are too high.

Jim Watkins, one of teachers, challenged us to summarize our manuscript in just three words. My manuscript is over 50,000 words. How was I supposed to boil it down to three and why? He explained. Make every sentence, paragraph, and chapter focus on those three words. Drive the message home. My message - God seeketh such. That's from John 4:23.

Did you know that God actively seeks His children to worship Him? I fear in these last days it is almost out of desperation (dare I say). There is so little worship of our holy Father that He has to go out looking for it. I know He had to work very hard to find me. A Christian for thirty years now, I have only been awake in the last five, and just in the last year did He find me finally where He wanted me to be - humble, holy, worship. Nothing has been the same since.

From worship pours the filling of the Holy Spirit, my "One" relationship to God, the fullness of Jesus'joy, the complete knowledge of His will, effectual and fervent unceasing prayer. These are the results of worship in spirit and truth.

One night at the conference dinner table I sat alone since I came a bit early. I prayed for some folks to sit with me whom God was seeking such. Two men and two ladies sat. For the next forty minutes we fellowshipped around the truth of Father's Word on worship and communion. The holiness around that table was beautiful. I know some of those who heard will bring much fruit and even abundant glory to God.

Out of worship God will provide for me to go full time into this ministry. As I look back, I can see that His preparation was perfect. I have over 100 blog entries which I can rewrite into article submissions. I have three book manuscripts going to four editors and agents very soon. I have the prayers of the saints like Marlene encouraging me on. I have the perfect will of God to faithfully follow.

Sayonara Japan. Amen Lord Jesus. Come quickly!

Does God Know What He is Doing? Do You?

2010-08-10T16:45:00.000-07:00

I recently wrote as a guest blogger on Awkward Christianity. If you missed the post, "What is This Bible?" you can click on the blog from my Roll. Otherwise, on with this post which my Awkward host prompted by suggesting a book to me, Decision Making and the Will of God: A Biblical Alternative to the Traditional View.

The Amazon listing asks these questions:

"Does God have a perfect will for each Christian? Can you be absolutely sure you’ve found God’s individual will for your life? Most Christians have been taught how to find God’s will, yet many are still unsure whether they’ve found it. God does guide His people, but the question is, 'How does He guide?'"

Without having read the book, I nevertheless would like to answer these questions, having read the Book.

Since the author deals with questions concerning God's individual will, I will address them as well. But know this, God has His priorities, and His perfect will comes first. So frame your questions appropriately, for whatever happens in your life afterwards, no matter to Whom or what you attribute your guidance, if you do not first submit to and obey God's perfect will, the rest happens by his permissive will.

His perfect will is this for all Christians. We are His witnesses and His discple-makers. Period. How we go about it gets into both His personal and permissive will. The best route to choose is the personal one. That is the one I shall discuss first.

God's personal, individual will is unique to you. Nobody else has the inside scoop on it. The only will you have in common with other believers is that perfect will given in Acts 1:8 and Matthew 28:19-20. God wants to personalize that perfect will for you. He uses two methods. First, He has given you spiritual gifts. Every one of them is for the doing of His perfect will (Ephesians 4:12). How you use them is best up to His personal will. If you leave it to yourself, then that is His permissive will. I do not recommend leaving God out of this most important role of your life.

The second method, and the focus of this post, is found in Romans 11:36-12:2. Not a big surprise to my regular readers. Do you want to know God's will? Start with worship. Be right with God, filled with His Spirit, seeking His wisdom from above. That is Romans 11:36. Next, die to self and offer your body a living sacrifice. You can only obey Romans 12:1 if you first obey Romans 6:11. Let God consume you in His holy fire. As you emerge, as Him for His will like in Romans 12:2.

The major hangup that young people have with this is they expect to have to ask this question just once and then be done with it. Sometimes God will answer and tell you His personal will for you and the rest of your life. But other times He will not. He may only tell you His will for the day, or the next hour. Make Romans 11:36-12:2 at least a daily practice. At most, do it every time in follow-up to obeying God's last response.

Jesus calls this being One with Him and the Father. Read John 17 over and over until you get this.

Now if you insist that you just have to know whether or not to go to this Christian college or that one, to date this guy or that gal, or some other major life decision, then take comfort. God is definitely interested. All in good time. I will simply say that if your priority for answers to these questions trumps God's perfect will for you to be a witness and a disciple maker, then you may not have perfectly obeyed Romans 11:36-12:2. You may have come to the throne with your own agenda. Satisfy what you know is God's will first. Then you can boldly come to the throne and ask in Jesus' Name.

It took me a long time to learn these simple truths. I spent years wading through God's permissive will (read "my will"). God may bless at times in all this as He certainly did me. But then we mistakenly interpret that as confirmation that God is in it. Not necessarily. Get after God's heart; don't look for signs. Get your relationship with Him down to just you and Him. Get rid of the expectations, the traditions, and all the other worldly conformance stuff that gets in the way of you offering yourself as a holy, living sacrifice. You come to Him with all your heart and He will tell you His good and acceptable and perfect will.

Unholy Worship

2010-07-09T14:51:00.000-07:00

Early this morning I had a terrible dream. I saw three horrible, monstrous men shackled. One by one they emerged from a door and walked past me. The third one walked closer to me than the others, leaned over, and gave a menacing look. I did not move – just stared him down. Before and to each side were armed guards. Before that, I was in a washtub and the water backed up because the drain clogged with beans. The water rose over the tub and covered the floor. I shrieked in uncharacteristic terror. Later in a shower room no one could figure out how to turn on the water. A beautiful clothed woman strode by the naked men. The last thing I saw was her face, in particular her eyes.

I asked God what this dream meant as it was so real, so vivid, and unlike any I had ever had before. He told me that the three men were the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet, released and soon coming to earth. The last one who looked at me as a particular enemy – the false prophet against God’s prophet. I knew I had power and victory in Jesus over this one.

The overflowing washtub was sin finally overflowing this world. It was sickening. No more drain. God awoke and took notice.

The shower room was the kingdom of unbelievers, not clothed with righteous wedding garments, but naked and expecting to be cleansed. But no water will come – only the whore to lead them with her eyelids to destruction.

I wonder how it will be that millions will worship the beast and his image in the last days. At least in this country, bowing the knees or prostrating oneself in worship is nearly non-existent. There will come a day – alas too late for most – when every knee will bow and every tongue confess to the glory of God that Jesus is Lord. But few will do that today.

We say we worship in our hearts, bow in our hearts, worship in song, prayer, and tithing. But none of this is worship according to the law of God. The Bride must ready herself on bended knee or prostrate waiting for the Bridegroom. It may be that some of us will have to force ourselves to appropriate this position before we realize its magnitude of humbleness before our God.

Do we, the Church, really know and practice lawful worship? God describes it in only one way and after Deuteronomy He gives no further information until one spot in Philippians and the rest in Revelation. Everything in between is simply exemplary. How long will you wait O Bride of Christ to worship our LORD Jesus in spirit, in truth, in the beauty of holiness, and either on your knees or prostrate? There are no other options. All other efforts are stiffnecked, not humble, and dangerously misworded and misapplied.

I am convinced that Jesus is coming soon and He will look for His Bride, those who have adorned themselves in the fine white linen robes of Jesus' righteousness, ready with lamps full of oil, pure, blameless, and without spot. Don't wait any longer. Get right with God. He will renew a right spirit in you. He will wash you. He will purge you. Yes, pray that Psalm 51 to our Father now. Pray it every time you sin. Every sin, no matter how "small" makes you guilty of all the law. All ten commandments - every time. So great a miss of the mark that only Jesus can forgive. Only His blood can wash clean. Only the gift of His repentance can purge. Only His love for you as His child can keep you in His hand forever.

The unholy trinity has been loosed and they are on the way. Only those who do not receive the mark, nor worship the beast or his image, will God save from the wrath to come.

2010-06-27T13:45:00.001-07:00

Could you still thrive as a Christian without your Bible?

My Father's Day Message

2010-06-19T05:04:00.000-07:00

Yesterday driving to work I prayed about my blog just posted, "Why Ask?". I thought about the prayers of some friends. They pray for revival. Like me, they pray for the awakening of the saints. They keep writing these prayers on Facebook. I like the prayers. I agree with them. But the frequency started to bother me. The lack of an answer bothered me. The focus on tears and brokenness bothered me. I wondered if all these prayers are really what God wants or have they become subtlely of the flesh. I pictured my friend and myself crying out all these years for these good things. Why God? Why so long? When will You arise? Are we asking amiss, that we may consume even good things like revival and an awakening upon our own lusts?

It is possible I suppose. We do grow weary of this world. We do want things set right. We do want Christians to act like Christians. But is that what God wants? Maybe. Maybe not.

So I asked God, "What do you want?" I was not prepared for His answer.

"I want all the glory, all the praise," He said.

That changed my prayer and my actions. But not instantly. God was after something deeper in my heart. I asked Him to search me and reveal this hidden thing. A day later I cannot recall the picture He used. But He was after my praise, something I have been begging Him to help me with.

There are certain things God will not help us with. He never says He will help us with the things that He plainly says are our responsibility. Praise is one of them. The only thing that comes right to mind that God will help us with is prayer. The disciples asked Jesus, "Teach us to pray." He did indeed.

Ten minutes later I was in the parking lot singing and shouting and crying and praising God. I am revived. I am awake. These are mere byproducts of glorifying God and praising Him.

Why Ask?

2010-06-16T15:17:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I caught the radio message of someone I never heard before. Ron Moore, of The Journey, was preaching on prayer. He said that the reason some Christian's prayers are not heard or answered by God is because of insincerity. The prayer never makes if from the lips to the heart. He mentioned Jesus' rebuke of the Pharisees in Matthew 15:8 (a quote of Isaiah 29:13).

Is that what it means? Is prayer really that simple? We just have to be sincere? What if an unsaved sinner hears that? Will they get saved just because their prayer of salvation is sincere?

Folks I hope you know the truth. A heart far from God is far because of sin. Not sincerity. Isaiah 59:2. This is more than just a subtle difference in words.

Awake unto righteousness, and sin not.

A program earlier in the day from Dr. Adrian Rogers (Love Worth Finding) was also about prayer. Dr. Rogers quoted heavily from Matthew 7:7. He also spoke an oft-heard phrase, "If God already knows the answer to our prayers, then why pray at all?"

Have you ever heard this answer before?

The question is rhetorically reflexive. The reason why we pray is because God knows the answer. That's why we ask Who we ask. This is ever so much more important than what we ask. The "what" is what God already knows.

Dr. Rogers went on to give a few examples which will also illustrate my point.

He quoted Luke 11:5-8 and provided an excellent amplification of it. The man went to his neighbors house not to ask for bread. He went asking because he knew his neighbor had the bread and was obligated to give him some.

He also quoted Jesus' prayer parable about the widow who would not stop troubling the judge to avenge her of her adversary. Jesus was teaching his disciples to always pray and faint not. How often we make the point of this parable the necessity of persistent prayer. Even Dr. Rogers said so! But that is not the point.

You see, the widow knew who to ask. She didn't just ask anybody on the street to avenge her of her adversary. The man did not ask a friend in the next town for bread. No. They asked of whom they knew had what they needed. The widow knew only the judge had the power to avenge righteously.

Instead of asking, "If God already knows the answer, then why pray?" we should say instead, "Since God already knows the answer, I will ask Him for it."

Now we are getting somewhere! God knows the answer and we don't. So we have to get to Him to get the answer He alone knows we need. How do we do that?

Dr. Adrian Rogers preached an outstanding sermon on that as well. I have quoted it many times in this blog. He brings us to Romans 11:36 to start. It is our prayers in heaven that get answers.

God tells us about our prayers that stay here on earth in James 4:3, Romans 8:26, Proverbs 15:29, and Isaiah 59:2. It is our prayers in heaven as we converse as one with God that is effectual and fervent, availing much. The fruit (answers) of prayer come from abiding in (asking) Jesus.

Editing is Like Discipleship

2010-05-31T14:31:00.000-07:00

Editing is like discipleship. It is hard work. It is my responsibility. It is my Lord's will. Since my last post I have been editing my manuscript "Christian Mythology". I have been focusing on the crucial first three chapters as they go into the proposal There are two publishing editors and two agents waiting on this proposal. I will send it when God says it is ready.

How will I know when it is ready?

Like discipleship, the process works something like this:

A person becomes a disciple at salvation. We must choose to forsake all in order to be a disciple of Jesus. We may choose not to, still retain our salvation, but fail to progress in the Christian life. Immediately we give up our right to ourselves, the Holy Spirit begins to teach all the Jesus said and did.

Discipleship at this time involves the believer and Jesus. Eventually the believer is of sufficient maturity, knowledge, wisdom, and understanding of God's teachings that he/she is ready to teach another believer. The latter believer, a babe in Christ, is fed by the mature one. As an agent of the Holy Spirit, God uses mature believers to bring up the young ones. The young one is ready to become a discipler at a point of sufficient maturity, knowledge, wisdom, and understanding of God's teachings.

A disciple is successful when he has reproduced himself in another believer AND that latter believer has then moved on to capably teaching other believers.

If that sounds like hard work, it is. But the fruit is priceless.

Editing is like discipleship. It is hard work. But the fruit of these manuscripts has already borne priceless fruit in other believers. I believe God intends these works for a wider audience.

The work of editing is to turn what God taught me into a story. He is teaching me to tell the story, just like Jesus does in the gospel letters. The first drafts of my manuscripts were written exactly the way God taught me. They were full of Scriptures and very little of my words. I wanted to be sure God got all the glory and that my fallible words were few so that what I wanted to tell would not be in any way misconstrued.

But for a few reasons left unsaid in this post, I have removed most of the Scriptures from the manuscripts and edited in the story. God does not want these works to teach others in the same way He taught me. While I find that most strange, I am following the direction. Instead of Scripture, I am telling the story of how God taught me. The narrative examples of His leading, His teaching, the circumstances, the real-life examples are in there instead. I have not decided yet whether to footnote or endnote the Scriptures which are still critical to the reader. But it will be the narrative to encourage the reader to move on to read the Scriptures so that they will know the truth.

I am certain that my words are powerless to save or sanctify. But if God makes them powerful to lead the reader to His all-powerful Word, then so be it.

As I think back on the initial fruitbearing of those chapters, it came about not because my friends took the time to read them. It happened because of the time we spent together in fellowship and prayer making real those things that were written. Those are the stories I will tell. I pray the re-telling we be even more fruitful. I trust they will be what the editors and agents are looking for.

Over the past two weeks, I have completed five rounds of complete editing those first three chapters and one round of editing the proposal. I felt in the beginning that God would kind of let me do this on my own. Actually I was afraid He would. Because when the manuscript was written in draft for the very first time, God undoubtedly inspired me to put it all to paper. But like discipleship I find that God is with me in the editing as well. That makes it much easier and less dreadful.

How will I know when the manuscript is ready to pitch? When those first three chapters bear fruit from the words of others who are able. My prayer continues to be, "God, show me the remnant." Those who are awake are worthy to "read the scrolls."

Anointed Among the Saints

2010-05-15T20:12:00.000-07:00

The closing events of the Colorado Christian Writer's Conference approached and still I did not know what God wanted of me this day. I thought things were pretty well wrapped up with what He wants me to do with the manuscripts. But surely I was still here for the final day and events for a purpose.

Many of you know how I have been praying for years for God to show me the remnant, the saints of His Body. He has called me to minister to this group according to Ephesians 5:25-27 and I Corinthians 15:34. Until today, He has brought them to me one or two at a time. This afternoon He answered in a way overwhelming.

Sue Cameron, one of the faculty, danced before the Lord to the song "How Beautiful is the Body of Christ". This was her sacrifice in which God was well pleased. The response of the believers in the audience brought them all to the floor with Sue. We joined hands and hearts and there I recognized that we were an answer to Jesus' prayer in John 17:21, "...that we may be one...." Indeed, we were one in the Spirit, joined by a common call to reach through our writing both the unbelievers as witnesses, and the believers as disciplers. There were perhaps fifty of us gathered in one accord. There we prayed. And then God did something even greater.

Marlene Bagnull, the conference organizer, has a one spirit with God and just as she naturally and fluidly speaks to the audience, so she interjects prayer to Father. She loves the Lord and has a clear passion and calling from Him. After the gathering, she invited folks to remain and if willing or desirous or called by God, they could come for an anointing.

This caught me completely by surprise that someone was willing to obey such a Biblical task. She and another prophetess poured a fragrant olive oil from a ram's horn upon my head, anointing me in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to the mission I was called. I have never seen this done before so of course I had never participated before that moment. But it was clearly God's final will for me this day.

Now this group of saints, in one accord, knows that I and the other anointed ones, have publicly vowed our calling and mission according to God's commission. We are anointed with the sweet frangrance of the oil and righteous prayers of the saints. And by the laying on of their hands, we have been sent.

Today I can think of no greater example of being the Church as God has called us. Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty. God bless His holy Name. Until He comes, so be it. Amen.

Divine Appointments

2010-05-14T17:50:00.000-07:00

This morning in obedience to Romans 11:36-12:2, I asked God for his good, acceptable, and perfect will. He didn't tell me right away. He revealed it later in the afternoon in a series of "divine" appointments. On the surface, these were appointments I made with agents and publishers. My objective was to pitch my manuscript, "Christian Mythology". If you've been following this blog or Facebook the past few days then you know that already two agents want full proposals as soon as possible. This is very encouraging.

But God turned things 180 degres this afternoon. The first publisher wanted me to change the title and remove most if not all of the direct Scripture quotes from the manuscript. He asked me to set up an impromptu appointment with another publisher who would be able to better explain why.

I recognized God's will immediately in the present happenings. A few weeks ago I blogged about my greatest fear in writing - editing. God prepared me and now here I am tasked with an editorial overhaul of my manuscript.

"God, is this what you want? My words instead of Yours?" I prayed. "Yes. Use your words and I will inspire them to lead readers to come to My Word." God's Word is the only quick and powerful two-edged sword that leads men to Himself. But He can use my words from Him to lead people to His Word to bring about salvation, repentance, or a renewal of right spirit within.

So saints, pray for me as I embark on this delightful task. Pray that I shall be bold with my words, sharing narrative personal examples that will lead people to Jesus, the Word of God.

2010-05-14T15:08:00.001-07:00

Just met with a publisher who wants me to change the title to "Christian Superstition" and remove most if not all of the Scripture references. He said most readers skip right over them. Instead write the points in narrative form.

Sounds good to me so here comes the major editing that God has been preparing me for. He knew!

2010-05-14T08:38:00.001-07:00

Listen to this: Last night at the Colorado Christian Writer's Conference God prompted me to worship and pray. When I arrived here three days ago I was told there was a special 24/7 prayer room here somewhere. I asked a conference coordinator where it was. She was speechless for a few moments.

She said that she honestly did not know where the prayer room was. Then she said that in her six years of working at this annual conference, this was the first time anyone asked about the prayer room. What she meant was that few if anyone she knew of went there.

Another coordinator knew the room was just up the stairs over where we stood. I went up and had it to myself.

Remember saints, worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness, in spirit and in truth. From heaven God will hear your prayers and give you the knowledge of His perfect will after He is satisfied with the glory due His Name.

2010-05-13T14:00:00.001-07:00

I am attending the Colorado Christian Writer's Conference this week. God has blessed so much. Just to get here He gave me a full-ride scholarship. This morning I met the man who provides the scholarship, author Cecil Murphey. This afternoon I had my first agent meeting. Terry Burns of the Hartline Agency wants a book proposal for my "Christian Mythology" manuscript.

2010-04-25T05:51:00.001-07:00

I cut and pasted each post on worship into a single new chapter which will introduce my manuscript Christian Mythology. Now I am editing it in anticipation of elevator speeches in two weeks at the Colorado Christian Writer's Conference.

OK So It's Been a While

2010-04-24T06:34:00.000-07:00

Up until today, I wrote when God wanted me to write. Yesterday He changed direction.

My wife and I are parents of a son with Asperger's Syndrome. We like to kid one another about where he got it from. The truth is, he probably got it from both of us. We have read a lot of studies which suggest that male and female "Aspys" tend towards one another for marital relationships. As social skills (or lack thereof) tend to be our biggest issue, this only seems natural that we would only be comfortable around someone else of our own kind. (We are not entirely convinced of this as a fact however since we see our son and the other Aspergers kids clash quite a bit.) But anyway, I am convinced that my wife and I are the progenitors.

One of my symptoms is an intense fear of the editing process in general and certain types of editors specifically. Since not too many people understand me, finding the right editor can be very difficult. Needless to say, I do not go out of my way to find them. This unfortunately leaves one other side effect. I have a lot of manuscripts sitting around in that great first draft form.

Two weeks from now I will attend my second ever writer's conference. This time, I won a scholarship, full-paid admission, room and board to the Colorado Christian Writer's Conference in Estes Park, CO. The entry requirement was for me to write an essay about why I should receive this scholarship, what I wanted to get out of this conference, and what God wanted me to say with my writing.

I wrote about the same subject that is on this blog, the same subject that fills three of my current manuscripts. Awake unto righteousness and sin not. The conference leader/scholarship judge is of the same heart and thus sent me notice of my acceptance.

That left me in a bit of a quandry because now I felt like I had to do something more with those manuscripts.

In the meantime, God was working on my life in a seemingly different area. Waking up is hard work. Discipleship is hard work. Living the holy life is hard work. These things are all the Christian's personal responsibility under the empowerment of the Holy Spirit.

Two days ago as I was pondering all this, God drew the parallel. God did all the work in saving me by grace. I do all the hard work of working out my salvation. God did all the work in giving me my writing as it first appeared. But editing is hard work and He clearly pointed out to me that it is my responsibility!

Well I wasted no time in getting right to it and spent the flight home yesterday editing the Introduction and Chapter One of the first manuscript "Christian Mythology". God wants me to get it "sale-ready" for this conference where I will meet with agents, editors, and publishers.

Pray this job gets done. Pray that there will be one like-minded agent/editor/publisher there that I will meet and agree with to advance these works to publication. I believe that God wants to quicken His saints to worship, discipleship, witnessing, and holy truth.

What's Fun About That?

2010-03-13T05:27:00.000-08:00

As God led me to salvation, one big question I had was, "What's so fun about being a Christian? What do you guys do for fun?" Reggie and Jeff (the guys who witnessed to me) always had the same answer, "Bible study and prayer!" Needless to say, that answer was not convincing.

But today I say without hesitation that they were right. I'll rephrase it though so perhaps the meaning will have more impact. "Spending time with Jesus reading His Word and talking and listening to Him bring me great joy."

It is a joy incomparable. Often words cannot describe it. I try to tell people and just get tongue-tied with glee. Sometimes I think it is like the moments Paul spoke of in II Corinthians 12:2-5, "I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, (whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) such an one caught up to the third heaven. And I knew such a man, (whether in the body, or out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) How that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter. Of such an one will I glory: yet of myself I will not glory, but in mine infirmities."

I believe this is the glory we share with Jesus as He prayed for us in John 17:22-24, "And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me. Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world."

I pray you desire to spend time in heaven with Jesus to experience this joy. It is for His glory, not your experience. This is a truth for believers, not sinners. This is not the gospel. It is just a wonderful gift of God.

The Fear of the LORD

2010-03-02T04:25:00.000-08:00

Did you know:

Today we must learn to fear the LORD - "...the LORD said unto me, Gather me the people together, and I will make them hear my words, that they may learn to fear me all the days that they shall live upon the earth, and that they may teach their children." (Deuteronomy 4:10)

Praise God the day will come when He will put his fear into our hearts forever - "And I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; but I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me." (Jeremiah 32:40)

My only question is, does this also apply to the saints? For these were written specifically to Israel. I can find no such reference pertinent to the saints.

Whose Faith is it Anyway?

2010-03-01T03:17:00.000-08:00

Having fully explored the way of worship, I am moving on to the facets of faith. God says we are to enter worship boldly. We can only do this in holiness. If there is sin present in our lives, we must deal with that first. We can also do that boldly and presently. But how do we maintain the holy life? What are we responsible for, if anything? And what is God's part in all this?

The just shall live by faith. Let's pick Romans 1:16-17 as the text for this for it describes the beginning of our faith.

"For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.
For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith."

The question is, whose faith or what kind of faith shall we live by? God answers that in Galatians 2:20:

"I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me."

Notice that little word "of" next to "faith". Too often translators and Christians erroneously substitute "in" for "of" here. If it truly were "faith 'in' the Son of God" then it would be a works salvation. It puts the requirement of belief as a condition of salvation upon the sinner. But this is simply not possible. After all, before salvation, the sinner is dead already in God's sight (John 3:17-18). And upon salvation, the newborn Christian is now dead to sin in Christ. As I have said many times before in this blog, a dead man can do nothing. Absolutely nothing. Jesus affirms this in John 15:5.

Therefore it is the faith "of" the Son of God which saves. Only He is worthy and able to save us from our sin. It was His faith without measure as the Son of Man that is able to believe that His Atonement would satisfy His Father.

And yet there is another facet to the statement that the just shall live by faith. We alone are responsible to maintain the holy life by faith, our personal faith. This faith is "in" the Son of God, that His Atonement is sufficient for salvation, justification, righteousness, and holiness. This faith we must exercise when sin arises in our lives and we must take personal responsibility to do the following:

"He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy." - Proverbs 28:13

"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." - I John 1:9

"Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord." - Romans 6:11

"But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him." - Hebrews 11:6

"By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous. For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?" - I John 5:2-5

"Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God." - Hebrews 12:1-2

Finally, I want to share with you a beautiful exposition of the demonstration of personal faith. I heard this in a sermon last week while visiting a church in Japan. It is based on Hebrews 11:13, "These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth."

The things that God promises He will do require faith on our part to believe that He will indeed do them. Look at the action words in that verse which demonstrate that kind of faith - seen them, persuaded of them, and embraced them. It is that last phrase which God deeply impressed upon me as I was wavering about the desired salvation of a Japanese friend.

God wants us to embrace His promises. To embrace a promise in faith means (in the Greek) to literally hug it closely and tightly like a hug whether for dear life or a hug for a dear loved one. It is full of affection, emotion, desire, focused attention, and virtue. (Virtue is that very first thing we add to our faith - II Peter 1:5)

This is new to me but altogether precious. What great power flowed through that faith and prayer. I knew right then that my prayer for my friend was right from the throne of God, full of grace, and right from His heart, that none, even this one, should perish, but come to salvation. "The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." - James 5:16 It was the most powerful hug I have ever felt. It is this kind of faith, I believe, which is represented by Hebrews 11:1, "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." That hug was God's tangible substance and evidence that He will do the thing purposed in His heart.

What Happens When You Worship?

2010-02-27T00:51:00.001-08:00

Entering into worship, one may come boldly. (Hebrews 10:19-20)

One must certainly enter in personal holiness. (I Chronicles 16:29-30; Matthew 5:8)

As we worship in spirit, God's Spirit joins us One with God. (John 4:23-24; John 17:22-24)

Recognize that in the Spirit (and your spirit) you are seated presently in the heavenlies with Jesus, One with Him before the Father. (Ephesians 2:6)

At this point, what happens when we are either on our knees or prostrate before God in worship, is really up to God. Words cannot explain what God derives from worship. It is for God and God alone. It is for His glory. The "benefit", if you will, that you come away with, is the knowledge of His present service.

God will give you some truth and some service as you commune with Him. (John 4:23-24; Romans 11:36 - 12:2)

God will teach you some truth that no man can give you. (1 John 2:27)

That service is the knowledge of His present will. Take heed that you do not delay in doing it. Once God has commanded it, filled you with His Spirit for it, and enabled you through His spiritual gift(s), go and do the thing. If you don't, you will find yourself stuck in some kind of spiritual mire. Oswald Chambers often reminds us of this in his daily readings of "My Utmost for His Highest".

Rejoice in the total consumption of your living sacrifice. Make it also a sacrifice of thanksgiving (Leviticus 22:29) and praise (Jeremiah 33:11; Hebrews 13:15).

After the doing of His present will, go back and worship again, for He is worthy.

I say this to your encouragement and warning. I had two things to do that God willed for me. Rather than do them presently, I delayed for a week. It was painful. I am learning to move on, to instantly obey, to fear the LORD and love Him with my whole heart and keep Him in all my thoughts. Grace be unto you saints. Awake unto righteousness and sin not. Be ready at all times for His appearing.

Angels and Demons

2010-01-20T15:26:00.000-08:00

For all my Christian life I shall remember my salvation. I shall remember (for purposes of this post discussion) the two men whom God used to deliver to me the gospel of Jesus Christ by which I was saved. Reggie Parker and Jeff Lovin were roommates just down the hall from me in our college dorm. The one thing I remember vividly about those two was their consistency. They were always bold in their witness and bold in speaking the name of Jesus. No matter what. Every action, every word, every circumstance always brought them back to the bold proclamation of the gospel and name of Jesus.

Over the years I have tried to look them up. Google. Facebook. Campus Crusade for Christ. Not a hit. They don't exist. I figure God wants it that way. No glory or praise or even thanks to the servants. Or perhaps they were angels and that's why I can't find them.

Many of my posts of late deal with worship. Here's what happened this morning as God has been prompting me to worship Him and be bold in my proclamation of the gospel and His name.

It started with resistance. No particular, discernable reason. I just did not want to bow down. That was enough for the Holy Spirit to convict me of ommission. No surprise that God was speaking about that very thing during an Adrian Rogers sermon on the radio that morning. "The spirit truly is ready, but the flesh is weak."

The Spirit cried out, "Worship me!" I went into my office, closed the door, and got down on my knees. "No!", He cried. "Prostrate."

"Oh what is the difference," I wondered. He would not give in. "Prostrate." I could feel the flesh resist but my mind desire to obey. Then it hit me - hard. Humble thyself. Humble thy SELF. I went flat. And God poured in His Holy Spirit and out He flowed in audible worship - "...every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."

Is there a difference? Yes, if God says so.

And just before I arose, having offered myself in reasonable service on His altar, He let me know His will for that moment. "Write this down and then create a prayer list of saints I lay on your heart. Pray for them according to I Corinthians 15:34 and Ephesians 5:25-27. Then also add those whom I desire to save according to my grace and gospel."

So there you have it.

Getting the Word Out

2010-01-14T17:11:00.000-08:00

Consider this my friends who awake unto righteousness and sin not:

In Jesus' time and up to the time of John writing Revelation some 90 years later, only three ways existed for any Scripture to reach the ears of the world: 1) immediate recipients of the letters, 2) received copies of the letters, and/or 3) heard it through oral tradition. Now consider further that any one recipient possibly received that one and only one letter in his/her lifetime. Given the length of some of the letters (ie. Romans and Corinthians), it is further possible that any one recipient through the most common method of oral tradition probably received only some portion of that letter.

This may seem staggering to some folks today in this world of internet, Tweet, blogging, and the former mass media of printed material. We may tend to think that the Word of God is instantly available to anyone in the world. Sadly, this is not true for many reasons. But just as in Jesus' time, so it is today in many parts of the world. Ancient, slow, limited communication.

Suppose you were around in Jesus' time or even now in some remote place where there are no Bibles, no computers, no cell phones. Imagine right now you are stranded there for some interminable amount of time. What of God's Word will you have with you? How did it get there? Why?

Why so little?

What kind of relationship do you really have with God? Are you One with Him as Jesus prayed for you? Suppose you have just that one fragment of God's Word. Maybe you got it from a tract that contained a few verses. And that's it for the rest of your life. Would you starve to death spiritually?

Or would you thrive because you have a living, loving, passionate, free, and holy relationship with God? Could you love Him just as much without a Bible? I have a missionary friend in China who knows many people there who love God with all their heart, soul, strength, and mind without a shred of Scripture to lay personal claim to. How is this possible?

God says in Romans 1:16, "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek." That gospel is clearly spelled out in I Corinthians 15:1-4, "1Co 15:1 Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures:"

That is the power of God. It saves men from sin. It brings the rightful glory and worship back to God and God alone.

Can you love Him and worship Him passionately with never another bit of the Bible passing your way? The gospel of Jesus Christ has thrived for two-thousand years despite the devil's best efforts to destroy the Word of God. He may be able to destroy the books but He cannot destroy our Lord Jesus because He claimed once for all men, for all sin, for all time, "It is finished." Death has no more power over Him or His adopted brothers and sisters. Sin has no more dominion over us. We are an holy kingdom of priests, saved from sin to worship and serve our living and true God in the beauty of holiness, spirit, and truth.

That truth is the Word of God. And whatever bit of it you have, hide it in your heart so that you sin not against Him. That Word is not just a book. It is the living Lord Jesus Himself, living in you, because He loved you and gave Himself for you. Jesus alone must be sufficient for you to be witnesses unto Him by any means possible.

Opinions Don't Matter

2010-01-03T12:26:00.000-08:00

The internet and 24/7 news seem to be more opinion than factual, well-researched, newsworthy portals. That is my conviction. To many Christians, TV was (and still is) the enemy of the mind and spirit. I would add the former two items. Christian blogs and forums abound here. With them comes the abundance of opinion about any topic of interest including the very Word of God. My conviction further holds that opinion does not matter in the case of the Word of God. If anyone has anything to say about the Word of God therefore let him do the following:

1. First, search the Scriptures to see whether the things heard and read and believed are really so. Acts 17:10-12 - "And the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea: who coming thither went into the synagogue of the Jews. These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so. Therefore many of them believed; also of honourable women which were Greeks, and of men, not a few." The power of the Word of God will always bear fruit.

2. Form your thoughts and convictions in heaven. Romans 11:36 - "For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen." The Word of God will always glorify the LORD.

3. Study. II Timothy 2:15-16 - "Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. But shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness." The Word of God will always boldness. Opinion is ungodly.

Any further time I spend on Christian forums, blogs, or other writings will be initiated in this way. This is not a criticism of those things or people, though some should be admonished for I see opinion far more often then is good. For instance:

1. The work has more of a person's word than the Word of God. Such knowledge is puffed up. Paul uses this term in I Corithians 4:6, "And these things, brethren, I have in a figure transferred to myself and to Apollos for your sakes; that ye might learn in us not to think of men above that which is written, that no one of you be puffed up for one against another." As in this verse, so I usually see it on the web. "I think God means such and such because so and so person says in his book...." What matters is what God says, not what others say about Him.

This is a subtle but important point that I shall dwell on for a moment. God says in II Peter 1:20, "Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation." He goes on to warn us of false teachers. I see "Christian" writers labeled as false teachers all the time. While sometimes this is true, I want you to see that truly God's Word has but one and only one interpretation. Yet at the same time "... the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." (Hebrews 4:12) Furthermore, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." (John 1:1) When you are One with God and Jesus, you have the personal relationship whereby you hear God speak His Word to you intimately.

This is a mystery spoken of in Ephesians 1:9, "Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself:" and Romans 16:25-26, "Now to him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began, But now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith:" These are the words that we are called to boldly proclaim as truth according to I Thessalonians 2:13, "For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe.

This mystery must remain untouched, this glory that we behold in One (John 17:24).

Sent to the Children

2009-12-23T12:47:00.000-08:00

As God sent Ezekiel to the house of Israel to say, “Thus saith the Lord GOD,” so He sends me to the children of God, the Bride of Jesus Christ. The reaction will be the same from both: “And they, whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear, (for they are a rebellious house,) yet shall know that there hath been a prophet among them. And thou, son of man, be not afraid of them, neither be afraid of their words, though briers and thorns be with thee, and thou dost dwell among scorpions: be not afraid of their words, nor be dismayed at their looks, though they be a rebellious house. And thou shalt speak my words unto them, whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear: for they are most rebellious. But thou, son of man, hear what I say unto thee; Be not thou rebellious like that rebellious house: open thy mouth, and eat that I give thee.” (Ezekiel 2:5-8)

Likewise, He sends me to a people who are not of a strange speech and of an hard language (3:5), but to the Bride of Christ, His elect. But they will not hear me nor God, for like Israel, they are impudent and hard-hearted. God prepares me with a strong face, an adamant forehead, without fear. He speaks His Word to me that I place in my heart and hear with my ears. Thus shall I go to the Bride in captivity, unto those of the Body, and speak unto them, and tell them, “Thus saith the Lord GOD.”

Then I understood what happened to me next. I had not reached the end. I was at a midpoint, familiar yet unfamiliar. I went in bitterness, in the heat of my spirit, but the hand of the LORD was strong upon me. (3:14)

That was it exactly. I was bitter. I spoke and nothing seemed to happen. Even though God said it would be so, I was angry. Yet every day God’s lovingkindness and mercy that endures forever strongly persuaded me to do the one and only thing that I could do of any noticeable consequence. I worshipped God.

Upon the first set of calamities to strike Job, he “arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped, And said, Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD. In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly.”

It is almost easy to pray, confess sin, go to church, and any other manner of Christian activity. But to humble myself, get on my knees or prostrate myself before God and worship Him is all but impossible but for the grace of God constantly calling out His heart, “Worship me!” That is His great desire. It is the one thing He wants above all else from His people. It is the one thing most lacking today. It is given to others, willingly, and with terrible consequence to come.

“And it shall be, if thou do at all forget the LORD thy God, and walk after other gods, and serve them, and worship them, I testify against you this day that ye shall surely perish .” (Deuteronomy 8:19)

God, I pray again to show me your Bride, the elect, and the remnant of Israel, who are asleep, that I may speak to them, and by thy Word, by the power of thy Holy Spirit, you will awaken them unto righteousness that they sin not. Cause them in their stirring to ready themselves for your coming, that they may be found “a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that (they) should be holy and without blemish.” Set them apart to worship you in spirit and in truth and in the beauty of holiness that you have bestowed. For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things to the glory of God, Amen.

God's Permanent Things

2009-12-19T11:51:00.000-08:00

As my oldest son nears college age, people ask him, "What do you want to major in?" He has no idea. Like him, a friend's daughter went down the technical path in high school taking all honors classes, acing each one with little difficulty or study. Then she surprised her parents by desiring to be a music major in college. My wry son replied, "I want to be a circus clown."

We talk sometimes about what God's will is for his life. I think when a Christian hears that question they believe that God's will is a one-time, lifetime thing. I used to think so. But the Bible does not teach that. A few things started to bring that truth to me.

First, Romans 11:36 - 12:2 (a passage I teach often) was written in the present tense. God says, "...so that you may know what is that...will of God." Second, God is the God of the present. His very name, "I AM" proclaims this reality throughout Scripture. And thirdly, by experience, I know that what God wills for me today may not be what He wills tomorrow. God's will is so much more than what He wants me to do. It is how He wants me to do it that is so unique and personal and real and dynamic.

I am still a prophet, still called to be a prophet, still crying out to the Church through the written word. But that can all change. Someday God may want to gift me in a different way. One of the things my wife are considering right now is opening up our home to host small group fellowships. To make that successful we need to ensure that we do it in accordance with God's will.

Prophets are not the most welcoming people. Folks tend not to be comfortable around us. We do and say strange things. At least that's the way it seems to folks who are far from God and His truth. When the world seems normal to Christians instead of the things of God, then God and His Word seem strange. I'm just the messenger. So to open my home to folks who may be near or far requires someone with a more delicate touch initially. That would be my wife. She is gifted to do these things.

Our church is praying for God to raise up a senior pastor. I told our youth pastor the other day that we need to pray for God to raise up the other gifted members of the body as well. That is how God makes a whole body. A single pastor does not complete the body of Christ.

Likewise, we need that body in the home small group.

There are only a few permanent things about God in this context. Salvation is one of them. We never lose it. And in this life we never lose the presence of sin. We must always overcome it. Everything else is pretty much dynamic. That is why we must remain rooted and grounded in the permanent things of God in the midst of the dynamics of daily life.

I find myself counting on His lovingkindness, His mercy that endures forever, and his longsuffering. I count on Him calling out to me, listening to me, and welcoming me into His throneroom by the blood of Jesus. I love to spend time with Him as David did.

Psalm 27:4, "One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to inquire in his temple."

I love to worship in the beauty of holiness. His holiness. As I think on the things of Philippians 4:8, they all lead me back to Jesus. Nothing of this world fits them. Only Jesus. These are the permanent things of God.

2009-12-03T10:01:00.001-08:00

I received some interesting feedback to this on Facebook.
What do you think?
I get nothing when I go to church but I give everything when I am the church.

God's Calls

2009-11-29T04:35:00.001-08:00

There are two kinds of calls from God. One is like that of the father to the son in Luke 15. When we sin and stray from God, He is always desirous of our return to Him, always calling for us to repent and accept His mercy. "He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy." (Proverbs 28:13)

The other calling is that which is unique to every Christian. What does God want of me in this life? Some are called as pastors, some evangelists, some prophets (see Romans 12, I Corinthians 12, Ephesians 4). My calling is written on the staff of this blog. Not only is this calling unique, but it can also change from time to time. That is entirely up to God and our sensitivity to His Spirit's voice.

At this point in life, my calling remains the same and was recently reinforced as I read the book of Jeremiah. In particular, this verse stood out:

"Therefore thus saith the LORD, If thou return, then will I bring thee again, and thou shalt stand before me: and if thou take forth the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as my mouth: let them return unto thee; but return not thou unto them." (Jeremiah 15:19)

It is a calling and a warning. I find the latter elsewhere in God's Word, "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever." (I John 2:15-17)

Awake unto righteousness and sin not. Will Jesus find us this way at the moment of His return?

Worship Where???

2009-11-23T14:01:00.000-08:00

The discovery period of worship continues. Scripture answers the question of how to worship (either on your knees bowed down or prostrate in spirit and in truth and in the beauty of holiness). Scripture does not answer the question of when or where to worship. God answers that personally I believe.

He calls out to us in our "One" relationship, "Worship me." When? Where? Whenever and Where-ever He pleases. The last time I was sitting in a sauna. Before that I was in a gym. Did I look weird on my knees there? I don't know and I didn't care. I confess the thought crossed my mind. But it did not matter. God wanted worship. I poured it out right there instantly in obedience.

When God commands you, do you instantly obey despite what circumstances, education, culture, peers, or anything else dictates?

Here's what Oswald Chambers has to say about it in his November 11 entry for My Utmost for His Highest, "THE SUPREME CLIMB

"Take now thy son ." Genesis 22:2

God's command is - Take now, not presently. It is extraordinary how we debate! We know a thing is right, but we try to find excuses for not doing it at once. To climb to the height God shows can never be done presently, it must be done now. The sacrifice is gone through in will before it is performed actually.

"And Abraham rose up early in the morning and went unto the place of which God had told him" (v. 3). The wonderful simplicity of Abraham! When God spoke, he did not confer with flesh and blood. Beware when you want to confer with flesh and blood, i.e., your own sympathies, your own insight, anything that is not based on your personal relationship to God. These are the things that compete with and hinder obedience to God.

Abraham did not choose the sacrifice. Always guard against self-chosen service for God; self-sacrifice may be a disease. If God has made your cup sweet, drink it with grace; if He has made it bitter, drink it in communion with Him. If the providential order of God for you is a hard time of difficulty, go through with it, but never choose the scene of your martyrdom. God chose the crucible for Abraham, and Abraham made no demur; he went steadily through. If you are not living in touch with Him, it is easy to pass a crude verdict on God. You must go through the crucible before you have any right to pronounce a verdict, because in the crucible you learn to know God better. God is working for His highest ends until His purpose and man's purpose become one."

Don't Take This Lying Down

2009-11-01T11:53:00.000-08:00

A good friend asked me a question about this series on prostrate worship. He wanted to know what all that pride looks like today. How do we exhibit that pride? Here's my answer. (I have actually written about this before in this blog but rather than hunt for it, I'll write it anew in this latter context.)

God says in I John 2:16, "For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world." The short answer to the question is in this verse "the pride of life." What is that?

Thayer's Lexicon defines pride here as "...an insolent and empty assurance, which trusts in its own power and resources and shamefully despises and violates divine laws and human rights; or, an impious and empty presumption which trusts in the stability of earthly things."

The Greek word for life here is "bios" (remember biology = the study of life). This life is further amplified by Thayer as "the period or course of life; or that by which life is sustained, resources, wealth.

There is nothing new under the sun here and this is the sin we all deal with as it was from the beginning. Look at Genesis 3:6 for the parallel, "And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat."

She saw that the tree was good for food (lust of the flesh), pleasant to the eyes (lust of the eyes), and desired to make one wise (pride of life). If Eve had a mirror, she would have seen her golden calf in front of her. She would have seen her parallel Amon-Re and Yahweh/Jehovah God.

Looking in our own mirrors, that is what we see when we see ourselves. God says in Genesis 3:22, "And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:" Having eaten the fruit in Adam, we have now become like God ("the man is become as one of us"). We are now the visible godlike manifestation of our God. We are, if you will, the Amon-Re. Before the curse, this was not the case, even though God said in Genesis 1:26, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness...." Because Adam and Eve did not have their eyes opened and their spirits put to death, they did not know they were naked; they did not know all the power that was stored in the knowledge of good and evil; they did not know about life and death, life-giving, the power of desire.

Wtih our sexual prowess, man believes he has the power of life. This is celebrated around the world in every culture in various ways from the perversions of pornography to the foolishness of fertility rites in many religions. The symbology is everywhere.

This is why I have written before that every sin goes back to this one in Eden. Pride. Pride in oneself as god who needs no other God/god in order to live. And that is why I think God gave His commandments in the order that He did:

(Exodus 20:2-6) "I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; And showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments."

First commandment - I AM the LORD thy God
Second commandment - Thou shalt have no other gods before me...

The idolaters on the hillsides, beneath the trees, and in the temples were simply performing sexual acts in worship of themselves, celebrating their pride of life. God said destroy all the idols to take away the visible pictures of this wickedness.

Yet one idol still stands - ourselves. What are we to do therefore?

Colossians 3:5 - Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry:

Romans 8:13 - For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.

I have written many times recently on what we must do from here henceforth. Only Jesus saves us from our sins.

It's Not What You Know...

2009-10-31T11:41:00.000-07:00

For many years I have wondered why the Hebrews chose a calf as the idol to worship during the Exodus. Where did they get such an idea? The root of this question lands in our laps, "How do we choose our idols?"

I found an excellent article on-line that I believe answers the question:

John N. Oswalt, “The Golden Calves and the Egyptian Concept of Deity,” Evangelical Quarterly 45.1, (January-March 1973): 13-20

As you can see the article is rather lengthy so if you wish you may go here to read it in its entirety. Otherwise, I paraphrase.

http://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/golden-calves_oswalt.pdf

Around the time of the Exodus, Egypt was leading towards monotheism. Their one god was Amon-Re. Like Yahweh/Jehovah, Amon-Re was all powerful, creator, good, and merciful. But unlike our God, the Egyptian god had a likeness, that of a bull. This signified his all-powerful/creator status, that is, his sexual prowess.

This is the culture in which the Hebrews were born, raised, worked, lived, and died. By the time they left Egypt, most had forgotten the God of Abraham. In fact, until Moses, none had any encounters with Him at all. Therefore, Amon-Re was foremost in their minds.

When Aaron constructed the golden calf however, he did not construct an image of Amon-Re. No, the knowledge of what Yahweh/Jehovah God had just done was too fresh and too powerful. The Hebrews could not deny what their eyes beheld during the Egyptian plagues, the Passover, the Red Sea, and now the firey, smoking mountain where Moses was. The Hebrews had certainly come to know again the God of Abraham as their God.

But in the hardness of their hearts they fell back on what they knew, not who they knew, as their god to worship. They saw the great power, the miracles, the deliverance. So they reverted to what was so powerfully portrayed in their minds as the image of who was responsible for all this. They drew a parallel and concluded that this calf was not really Amon-Re, it was Yahweh/Jehovah God Himself!

And this is why Moses was so upset when he came down and saw them worshiping the idol. It was not just because of the fact that it was an idol of Amon-Re, not because of the lewd sexual acts performed in prostrate worship of the idol. No, what upset Moses the most was that the Hebrews called this idol God. The calf represented both the visible and invisible (g)Gods that they knew.

Fast forward a few more centuries to another meeting with Jesus and the Samaratin woman at the well in John 4:20-24.

(The woman said), "Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth."

Notice again the tendency towards the seen and familiar versus the unseen yet familiar.

We idolize what is known and seen and familiar. We derive these idols from our culture, our upbringing, our education.

God is not known because He is seen or familiar or culturally popular or part of our Christian homes or education. He is only known of those whom He knows and chooses and saves by the quickening of the spirit. Hence we can worship Him alone in spirit and in truth.

This is why God warned Moses and Joshua to rid the land of all the idols and the places of worship. Remove the pictures. Destroy the remnants of culture. Give no opportunity to the flesh. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

Parallel Prostration

2009-10-30T12:29:00.001-07:00

I asked the Lord, “How are the sins of man today like those of former times?” As I continue to read in Isaiah and Jeremiah, pictures of idol worship on top of hills, under trees, and in the temple prevail. What’s going on here and what is the parallel?

As I examined earlier in the Scriptures, to worship simply means to bow down or to prostrate oneself. There are no exceptions to this position. Also, worship is most often a singular act though at times associated with service. It is the highest commandment of God that Jesus testified to in Matthew 4:10 and Luke 4:8, referenced back to Exodus 20:1-6.

When worshiping idols, how does one prostrate oneself upon the hilltops, under the trees, or in the temple? The answer is in the service. These idolaters committed adultery and fornication there with prostitutes. This act is committed in the prostrate position. It is ultimately an act of self-service, that is, worship of oneself. For that is the root of all idolatry. This is today as it was in the beginning according to Genesis 3:4-6.

Think of any sin and you will find at its core a service, an activity, a motion, that ends up or suggests a bowed down or prostrate position of one or more people. Some are obvious. Some are not. For instance, Jesus points out many subtle sins of prostration in Matthew 5, the Sermon on the Mount. How is anger (v. 22) such a sin? Jesus likened anger to murder. You murder someone and what position do they end up in before you? Right! Prostrate. Before you. Do you see the picture of this person at your feet? What is in your heart besides anger and murder? Pride! You are over that other person. They are bowed down to you.

“But I am no murderer,” you say, “and I’m not angry with anyone. And no one has ever bowed down to me.” Seems silly doesn’t it? We don’t see this happening on the street let alone a hilltop, under a tree, or in a temple, do we? Look again. What does God say about pride?

Pride puts the poor under your feet – Psalm 10:2
Pride puts God beneath you – Psalm 10:4
Pride in its arrogance and forwardness puts others beneath your tongue – Proverbs 8:13
Pride brings contention (the prefix ‘con’ making one against or beneath) – Proverbs 13:10
Pride conquers and destroys everything flat before you – Proverbs 16:18
Pride takes the spoils so that nothing is left to hold another up – Isaiah 25:11
Pride makes one drunk and fallen down (passed out) – Isaiah 28:3
Pride makes one believe he can bring God down – Obadiah 1:3
Pride of life (the little ‘I am’ vs. the Great I AM) – I John 2:16 (See how this verse ties back to Genesis 2!)

80/20

2009-10-23T23:55:00.000-07:00

I had a nice chat with my wife today. We talked about a subject that comes up often - church. Seems a lot of folks who I know are talking about this one subject in particular: how many people who go to church are truly saved? I and some of the followers of this blog say somewhere around 10-20% while others say 80%. Interesting.

For the past few days I have read about the last six chapters of Isaiah and the first three chapters of Jeremiah. This is powerful stuff. I encourage you to read it no matter what category you think you fit in, the 80% or the 20%. To me, it looks like God lumps all of Israel and all of Judah (read 100%) into these chapters of judgment and mercy.

Then I read Romans 6 and 7. Thank God those words are all-inclusive.

So think about it. Salvation is yes or no. 80/20 is irrelevant. It's 0/100 because it is unique to every individual.

Yet when it comes to sin, mercy, righteousness, and judgment, the numbers apply differently. But one thing I have learned lately, God will have mercy on whom He will have mercy. He brings the rain on the just and the unjust. But these are very hard to quantify. How great is the mystery of God sometimes.

Just when I was in the depths of sin and was convinced that God would not talk to me, He showed me mercy. Indeed His hand was heavy. But that's mercy. That's the goodness of God leading me to repentance.

Sometimes I wonder why God always uses a heavy hand to do this work. Why doesn't He send a tender brother or sister along to talk to me? I ask Him that a lot and never get an answer. Instead He leads me into these chapters of Isaiah and Jeremiah. It is good for me to be afflicted that I might learn to obey and fear the Lord.

There is much for us to learn about this warfare between the law of God and the law of sin in our members.

Call me Jonah

2009-10-19T00:01:00.000-07:00

Proverbs 13:21 – Evil pursueth sinners; but to the righteous good shall be repaid.

Oh, evil has pursued me for weeks. I knew what state I was in. And in the end, I had no excuse. So I won’t list them here. They are all wicked sin. It was the heavy hand of God upon me like Jonah (but unlike him I could not physically sleep for the evil upon me and the darkness of my heart). I am the cause of all this evil for I would not obey the Lord and stay awake. Instead I wanted to sleep in sin and convince myself that I was avoiding the pain.

Psalm 32:4, “For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer.”

In all my study of the Word lately I had concluded that God does not hear the prayer of the wicked, nor does He talk to the wicked. (Proverbs 15:29) I thought that as a Christian, living in the flesh and its sin, was wicked. Hence my conclusion. Either I am wrong or else God is so merciful beyond even His Word. I cannot yet believe the latter for I do not believe that God would contradict Himself. Or else maybe the Words I read are not so absolute, not so universal as I thought, but organic only to the situation at hand. This brings into question all other sorts of organic situations to make me wonder about this question of universality versus singularity of application of God’s Word. It is worthy of more study.

But I cannot escape knowing with certainty that God’s Spirit continued to provoke me lovingly throughout this period. “Repent. Don’t give up. I am merciful.” He would say these things. Also, I did not forsake the daily reading of the Word. Often, though I would not want to see it, a verse would pierce me as the quick and powerful Word of God is intended to do. God not letting me go.

In turn I was more merciful to my own son this past week. He can be a handful with his Asperger’s syndrome combined with just being a little boy. The little had to be weighed more heavily that mercy might abound. No matter how badly he behaved at the pool, no matter what the report from mom at the end of the day, I just could not bring myself to be angry with him. His day by far was better than mine. And he was just having fun at the pool. In his own little world, he was just having fun, no matter how miserable he made everyone else around him feel.

I realized that as I looked out my hotel balcony towards the pool the day after he went home. I missed him so much. I wanted to look down and see him playing. Just having the innocent fun of a little boy who lives in his own world and seemingly cannot recognize any other.

Sinners are like that. We’re helpless. That’s why God had to first love us. That’s why His Spirit had to draw us to Himself. That’s why salvation is entirely of Him. That’s why repentance is also entirely from Him, a gift of God. That’s why I kept hearing Him tell me to repent. He wanted me back. He desires me to worship Him in Spirit and truth. He seeks such.

I had a hard time with that. “You repent,” He said, “and I make these problems go away.” He had done that before, many times in my life. I didn’t want to universalize this one. I did not deserve it. Why should He? Why would He?

But He did. I woke up the next morning after going to sleep in repentant prayer. The problems were fixed. By one o’clock in the afternoon they were cemented forever in the vault of no problems, no worries. The admiral had ordered it such. The problems were non-issues. Proceed with the mission.

God indeed can repay the righteous with good. I love Him.

This morning I woke up in prayer. What shall I do Lord in response to your goodness? I read in Isaiah 62:6-7, “I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, which shall never hold their peace day nor night: ye that make mention of the LORD, keep not silence, And give him no rest, till he establish, and till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth.”

I could not keep silent about the good thing the Lord had done to me. He gave me a name. As soon as I left my room, there he was. Would I “be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand?” (Ephesians 6:13) Only in fearless obedience to “Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints; And for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel,…” I prayed for him. And then I opened my mouth and proclaimed the goodness and praise of God.

Then after we departed I asked God, “What next? I want to do something more for you.”

Pray for him, that the good word you have spoken be not snatched from his ground (Matthew 13). I desire worship and you desire others to fellowship with you in truth and holiness. Continue the work of Ephesians 5:25-27 and I Corinthians 15:27. Be bold and persistent.

One of the shortcomings I have as a leader is my trust in people. I really want to believe that people want to do good, want to do the right thing, and expect the same from others. However, I have been continually disappointed over the years in this. I see this latest season of rebellion as a lesson both for myself and for my shortfallen trust.

Psalm 14:1-3, “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good. The LORD looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God. They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one.”

I know why I have a hard time with this. I’m one of them when in rebellion. There can be no other outcome but complete disappointment when working with sinners. To them and rebellious Christians, goodness is right in his own eyes (Judges 17:6, 21:25, Proverbs 12:15, 16:2, 21:2). It’s a moving target no man can hit and it is the source of all contention and it comes from pride.

So I have to walk in the Spirit and not fulfill the lust of the flesh that desires its own goodness and righteousness. I must not trust the goodness of another man. I must boldly trust in the Lord and His Word and His Spirit to lead me in the way which is right. I know better. “The lips of the wise disperse knowledge…” (Proverbs 15:7a) …”For the LORD giveth wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding.” (Proberbs 2:6). Therefore I can only trust His Word and confidently and boldly disperse it. “So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.” (Isaiah 55:11)

Falkenstein

2009-09-27T19:36:00.000-07:00

Today I wrote about 5000 words, restarting my historical fiction novel "Falkenstein" once again. All told, I have written over 50,000 words on this thing over the years. I don't like any of it. I'm a little happier about today's work only because I attended a seminar and read a book that have helped me a great deal.

Writing fiction is nothing like the non-fiction works that I usually produce. This is not a Christian book. I keep wondering about its inspiration. When writing my trilogy, "Christian Mythology", "The Remnant", and "My Little Children", each was preceded with a lot of prayer and Bible study. Is any of that necessary for an historical fiction novel about a castle, the art of falconry, an emperor whose works on falconry were centuries ahead of his time, and a Bavarian king many called "Mad" King Ludwig?

Certainly a lot of research was required. Is that analogous to Bible study? In a way. But it does not yield spiritual inspiration. Is prayer required? I tend to think not. But as a Christian I realize without Jesus I can do nothing. But it all just feels weird. So I am learning and asking God these questions. I'm also not sure why He has me on this hiatus when the trilogy is desperately needed in the hands of a sleeping Church. This is a strange time.

Your prayers are coveted.

New Direction

2009-09-19T14:11:00.000-07:00

One of my lifelong passions is all things related to King Ludwig II of Bavaria, especially his castles (Neuschwanstein for example). Many times I have attempted to write an historical fiction novel on his life, mysterious death in 1886, and his unfinished castle Falkenstein. The attempts have dragged on for over ten years. Now I will write that novel.

It is a huge diversion from my usual non-fiction writing on this blog as well as books. Oh well, it shall be done. Donald Maass and his book "The Fire in Fiction" are my inspirations. I won't tell you who my inspirations are for my characters. That's part of the fun.

So I may post the occasional blog here for its intended subject. But excuse me as my focus will be elsewhere for a time. At the same time I intend to edit and edit and edit some more my manuscripts upon which this blog is based. When complete, I will submit them to agents. That's a lesson learned from Mr. Maass. It's all about the story. Make it the best it can be.

Our God is a consuming fire.

Streaming Thoughts

2009-09-06T13:43:00.000-07:00

Here's something a little different. Usually I write something only after stewing on it for a long time. That process begins with prayer. In between it includes lots and lots of notes on things God's Spirit directs me to in His Word or things He wants me to think about and then extract from His Word. Often these notes come in torrents. Once bathed in prayer, Bible study, and coherence, they come out as blogs or books. Such a process started this morning. Below is the result.

This first bit started as a conversation in my head, one often heard from folks I talk to.

Why "Christian Mythology"? Who are you to tell me?
Whose authority?
How can the whole church be wrong?
What about pastors, teachers, deacons?

We teach truth and false doctrine but not always all the truth. Who decides what we believe and teach? Who is responsible for deciding what is taught and believed?

You know something is wrong but...
You say it's not really all that bad to stir up such a fuss.
Then what should we do with those parts that are wrong? What are we responsible for? What will God hold us accountable for?

How do you know something is wrong? Who told you? Has the church admitted it's own guilt? Did you conclude this by your own experience? Or did God tell you? What are you required to do with this knowledge?

What happens when we become the Church and worship exactly as God prescribed? What happens when we don't? What happens when we try to interpolate and do/teach/believe things that we think are not in the Bible, thus providing us with the liberty/freedom of interpretation and expression? Do such areas exist?

What if you're right? What should I do? Don't follow me. It is God waking you up. Follow Him. Obey the promptings of His Spirit as He guides you in His Word to learn the truth.

A little later on this stream started after I heard that the linen wall in the Old Testament Tabernacle was woven from a single weave. This represents the righteousness of the saints today. I want to investigate this.

If we indeed live in the church age of Laodicea, how can this be reconciled with this present representation?

Worship - where God chooses to put His Name (Deuteronomy 12, esp. 4-5) sacrifice, rejoice, eat -
Tabernacle
Temple
Jerusalem
John 4:21
God seeks another - John 4:23

Phrase - "Prepare our hearts to worship" - Where does it come from? What does it mean?

Yesterday someone mentioned to me again (I hear this a lot) that they think the actual percentage of folks in church who are saved is quite small, from 10-20% max.

If 80% of the church are unsaved then:

1) they should be easily identified by the other 20% and
a) they should be cast out
2) they are not identified by the other 80% because these are asleep and assimilated not knowing the difference and
b) nothing happens

And finally, this stream was put to paper:

Suppose these are the only words you ever hear from Jesus. What would you do? Suppose this is the only act you ever see Jesus do. How would you respond?

Most of His Words and acts were performed to unique and singular audiences, sometimes many, sometimes, one. And they never see or hear Him ever again. What did they do? How did they respond? How about you?

They had no Bible. No books. No internet. No phones. No mass communication. No relative hindsight.

Devotional?