Category Archives: Uncategorized
Praying St. Patrick’s Breastplate
You know the handful of pioneering saints who carried the name of Jesus on such vast scale that we sit envious in church hearing about them? St. Patrick was one of them.
Satan and Bathwater Theology
Recently, I was emailed by a follower basically asking, “is Satan real, or an illusion?”
I can’t believe I’ve reached the stage of being asked questions – yeeeeeeeeeeee – but fortunately, there’s Scripture. I’ll just go there.
Satan is real. He is treated as a conscious being with intelligence and personality. And he is a (limited) threat.
This subject makes people sensitive. There’s a lot of (pardon the expression) heated opinion about Satan and his precise role in the Christian’s life. Good teachings, bad teachings, and bad teachings that spring off both the good and bad.
Personal conviction: I want Scripture, straight-up, as it truly is. I don’t want man’s “compensational” teachings. Np Scripture tossed aside or marginalized because “people will run the wrong way with it”, or because it frightens them, or because it diminishes God in their preferred system. Throwing out the baby with the bathwater, in other words. The term “bathwater theology” describes this phenemenon well, and there’s a lot of it floating around.
Here’s what I find in Scripture (and may God lead me well in this).
He Won’t Forget Your Obedience
Where the ten scouts saw only Anakites and a bloody repayment for their obedience, Joshua and Caleb saw the power of God.
You’re confronted with a choice.
The wrong choice is obvious, but it looks better in the short term; you can see the reward.
The right choice is also obvious, but you don’t see any gain to it. All you can see down that road is losing out for the sake of being good. Being honest on your timecard when nobody would know either way; breaking up with that person who’s apathetic towards God; clamping down on that beer habit when it feels like the only thing keeping you going.
I’ve written along these lines before, but…how the church would change if we remembered that God promises rewards for obedience?
I should say this right away: the greatest reward of obedience is God himself. Tim Keller recently said it well: “Don’t obey God to get stuff. Obey God to get God.” More of his peace, his power, his unfettered presence…
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God Does Not Bless Messy Motives – by Carla Gardner
I’m on board with this – with the caveat that God also operates on grace, and does give to those who are not worthy, because that’s all of us.
God wants to bless people, but God can only bless a person if their heart and prayers are for the right reasons. There are some people who desire things only because they see other people with things, […]
Under Attack
Reading: Psalm 89
(Verses 38-45)
But you have rejected, you have spurned,
you have been very angry with your anointed one.
You have renounced the covenant with your servant
and have defiled his crown in the dust.
You have broken through all his walls
and reduced his strongholds to ruins.
All who pass by have plundered him;
he has become the scorn of his neighbors.
You have exalted the right hand of his foes;
you have made all his enemies rejoice.
Indeed, you have turned back the edge of his sword
and have not supported him in battle.
You have put an end to his splendor
and cast his throne to the ground.
You have cut short the days of his youth;
you have covered him with a mantle of shame (NIV).
Reflection
Though we…
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There is More to Prayer than the Answer
This is probably the best post I’ve seen from Dave yet. Powerful, quotable, and TRUE. Highly recommend.
I sit and wait for God to let me in on His, up until now, secret plot for my life. I have heard it a thousand times or maybe only one hundred times, as a matter of fact I don’t know how many times I have heard it and I don’t know how many times I have preached it but I do know that yes, no or wait are the only possible answers to my requests. So I sit and wait with nothing to do but wait until wait becomes a yes or no or maybe a no not now becomes a wait a little longer or a yes for now becomes a no for later or a wait becomes a…
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God…Smiling Down On Me?
Another example of how I am slowly learning his pleasure and favor towards me.
Prophecy
Who Wants Change?
Brandon J. Adams 