Cash or credit

Intercessory Prayer

Looking at the lives of most christians you would define their prayer theology as one that is very passive. By that I mean, that if you were a fly on the wall in most Christian's homes prayer would be an extraordinarily small part of their lives. The theology behind this is insidious. It is a belief that God always gets his way (He doesn't) and that if you don't participate God will find someone else to carry your slack (He won't necessarily). This leaves Christians with an apathetic view of prayer. It is a good and fine thing to do unless... you ahve soemthing else to do.

Scripture, however, defines prayer as very important. It is those who ask who recieve , and those who seek who find, and those who knock who have doors opened. The Greek tenses in these verbs are continual tenses. Ask and keep asking, knock and keep knocking, .. in other words pray and don't give up. This is crucial for the christian and imperative for the prayer warrior. Little happens that is not provoked by prayer. Especially, in the life of those who are estranged from God. If you are praying for an lost friend or loved one- you may be the ONLY link between them and God. This would explain the Enemy's intensity in fighting your prayer life. But don't give up under pressure- instead press on to defeat the enemy and bring men and women into deeper intimacy with Jesus.

Alice Smith is the US Prayer Track coordinator of 2000 AD and she writes the following tips for prayer

When the pressure is on to give up, don't! As believers, we are not to live according to our feelings but according to our spiritual position in Christ. Satan is no match for an intercessor living securely in the following positional truths:

1. YOU ARE AN OVERCOMER. There is no defeat for those who have confidence in the Spirit of God to give them overcoming life. Paul said, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" (Phil. 4:13).

2. YOU ARE COMPLETE IN CHRIST. There is no lack for those of us who are in Christ (see Col. 2:8-10). But if we view ourselves as lacking, we have defined our experience. Look at yourself from God's point of view, not man's.

3. YOU HAVE BEEN GIVEN AUTHORITY. We have been given the keys of the kingdom. Is it any wonder then that Satan attempts to provoke us to apathy, discouragement and depression? He simply can't afford to ignore a believer who is exercising her authority in Christ through prayer (see Matt. 16:19; Luke 10:19).

4. YOU HAVE SPIRITUAL WEAPONS. Christ, the Mighty Warrior, has given us not only defensive armor but also offensive weapons (see Eph. 6:11-17; 2 Cor. 10:4). These weapons are spiritual, not earthly, and they have but one purpose: winning spiritual wars!

Yet even the most powerful gun is harmless until someone pulls the trigger. We must be willing to pray until the target is in sight. Then we must continue to pray until the target is destroyed!

It is time for believers to pray. Perhaps like never before! Step up to the high calling.

Larry Norman

Back in the 70's I heard the Father of Christian Rock sing at a small coffee house in Oaklawn. He passed away this year. Larry Norman was quite a voice for the Jesus Movement! Here is one of my favorite songs by Larry.

THE GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL


i was born and raised an orphan
in a land that once was free
in a land that poured its love out on the moon
and i grew up in the shadows
of your silos filled with grain
but you never helped to fill my empty spoon

and when i was ten you murdered law
with courtroom politics
and you learned to make a lie sound just like truth
but i know you better now
and i don't fall for all your tricks
and you've lost the one advantage of my youth

you kill a black man at midnight
just for talking to your daughter
then you make his wife your mistress
and you leave her without water
and the sheet you wear upon your face
is the sheet your children sleep on
at every meal you say a prayer
you don't believe but still you keep on

and your money says in God we trust
but it's against the law to pray in school
you say we beat the russians to the moon
and i say you starved your children to do it

you are far across the ocean
but the war is not your own
and while you're winning theirs
you're gonna lose the one at home
do you really think the only way
to bring about the peace
is to sacrifice your children
and kill all your enemies

the politicians all make speeches
while the news men all take note
and they exagerate the issues
as they shove them down our throats
is it really up to them
whether this country sinks or floats
well i wonder who would lead us
if none of us would vote

well my phone is tapped and my lips are chapped
from whispering through the fence
you know every move i make
or is that just coincidence
well you try to make my way of life
a little less like jail
if i promise to make tapes and slides
and send them through the mail

and your money says in God we trust
but it's against the law to pray in school
you say we beat the russians to the moon
and i say you starved your children to do it
you say all men are equal all men are brothers
then why are the rich more equal than others
don't ask me for the answer i've only got one
that a man leaves his darkness when he follows the Son


see him perform it live http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTlr-73DQq8

Thanks Larry for the blessings.

Coloring in the Lines

We are taught that in kindergarten and preschool. Lines keep the colors in their places. Lines give the picture distinction. Lines help communicate the vision of the artist. Makes sense to me.

So the Proverbs(22.28) say "Do not move the ancient boundary Which your fathers have set."

Rules are lines. The problem I am addressing today is people's inability to follow rules. Is it just rebellion? People seem to see two classes of people -those that need the rules and then the other class of people- the exceptions (themselves). The height of arogance and pride- that your situation is special. You see see it everywhere. The jerk that endangers the entire highway by driving down the emergency lane 100 miles an hour. The guy who always double parks. The one guy who thinks he alone is trustworthy to eat and drink in the facility. The person in the theater who has the "special privilege" to speak aloud to his neighbor. the lists go on and on.

But rules are to keep peopel safe. Rules are to help communicate priorities. Rules are so that everyone is treated the same. If you are a special case- the rest of us apologize to you! But we need some predictability! WE need to know that we can live together, work together, and YES worship together without someone getting hurt. So we have rules.

Then there are the assumptions that there are perfect rules. You know the ones that fit every situation. But of course, there are no such rules. Rules are general principles that help us live together. They really don't fit every situation but we need you - yes, even you- to abide by them so that we can do those things that we do without danger to others.

Now I hate stupid rules. Berwyn has a tax on pets. Can you believe it? What cost does a dog incure to society? That is a stupid rule. It provokes the rebellious side of me. Is God using the crazy rules of our society to test my ability to deal with my rebellion?

I don't have all the answers- I just know that there needs to be a healthy respect for rules. God help me to honor the lines. What do you think?

oprah's cult (from fox news)

Oprah Winfrey may have gone too far in exploiting and distributing the teachings of a questionable New Age writer.

On Monday night, Winfrey conducted her weekly Web "event" seminar with New Age writer Eckhart Tolle. His message: "Life is the dancer and you are the dance."

Got that?

The seminar was No. 7 in a series of 10. On the first 90-minute Webcast with Tolle, Oprah extolled the author’s virtues, calling his best-selling "New Earth" book "one of the most important books of our time," the seminars one of "the most exciting things I’ve ever done."

Imagine that Winfrey considers her conversations with Tolle, a man with a shady and un-checkable background, more important than her schools in Africa and Mississippi for underprivileged children, more important than her Angel Charity network or her zillion-dollar syndicated TV show. Tolle must be something else!

But it’s not like Winfrey is endorsing Maya Angelou or Toni Morrison, serious, educated artists with portfolios. Tolle is more like Kilgore Trout, Kurt Vonnegut’s science-fiction crackpot alter-ego.

And what’s different about the Tolle connection for Winfrey is that for the first time in her much-applauded Book Club’s history, she’s gone into business with the author. And the author is not one of a novel, memoir or cookbook; he’s the mysterious creator of a philosophy that Winfrey endorses and suggests her readers live their lives by.

But is Eckhart Tolle an appropriate spiritual leader? He told an interviewer that he stopped going to school at age 13 and didn’t resume any education for at least a decade. In the same interview he says he graduated "with the highest mark at the London University."

The press rep at the University of London says there’s simply no way to verify that. "You might as well say you graduated from here," joked the person I spoke to. Clever.

He says in interviews that he had a personal epiphany in 1977 at age 29 after a life of suffering from suicidal depression. For the next 15 years, no one knows much about what happened to him, and he’s not saying. He says he spent time wandering and sitting in London’s parks, with "no relationships, no job, no home, no socially defined identity," but a sense of "intense joy."

In seminar 1, Oprah’s new guru tells her: "I was living in England, and I had this strong impulse one morning … I had to move to the West Coast of North America without knowing why … So I moved to Vancouver and then I took a Greyhound bus to California, knew only one or two people, and I said, 'Why am I here?'"

"Three weeks passed, somebody put me up in a room near San Francisco, and suddenly this came. I bought a notepad and suddenly the strong stream came through and I wrote, 'What Is Enlightenment?' The beginning of 'The Power of Now.' The moment I wrote that, I knew this is the book that wants to be born. So rather than me wanting to write a book, there was a book that wanted to be written."

And so on.

Oprah’s response to this: "It’s like Michelangelo says the angel’s in the marble and he just cuts away the marble."

Well, not quite.

His books, "The Power of Now" and "A New Earth," are the same gobbledygook as most New Age stuff. They’re all about self-empowering and how to find out who we are. "Awakening" is Tolle’s key word. Tolle is very busy enforcing moments of silence and showing his readers how to find their "pain-body."

Nothing new there. And nothing new for Oprah, who’s now so wildly wealthy that she’s exceeded literally any famous person she might interview. Parade magazine puts her 2007 income at $260 million, the most of any celebrity and $150 million more than Steven Spielberg, the most successful filmmaker of all time. So what can she do besides anoint presidential candidates or start a religion?

Indeed, Winfrey already has flirted with several cult-like New Age deals. She’s enthusiastically embraced the Scientology celebrities like Tom Cruise and John Travolta. She’s even gone into business with Kirstie Alley, whom she’s planning to give a forum in her own talk show.

She’s also promoted televangelist Marianne Williamson’s kooky "Course of Miracles" and a book of New Age clichés by Australian Rhonda Byrne called "The Secret." (There’s a good piece on the latter at salon.com.)

Winfrey is nothing if not gifted at recognizing what’s already popular in the culture and exploiting it. But her association with Tolle is way over the top. It involves sponsorships with General Motors (Chevy), 3M Corp. (Post-Its) and Skype Internet phone service. In one broad stroke, she’s managed to accomplish what Scientology never has achieved: bringing corporate America’s implicit approval into religion.

What’s interesting is not so much Tolle, with his German accent and blank stare, proselytizing his nonsense. He talks a lot, literally, about looking at flowers and trees in a new way, much like Chauncey Gardner in "Being There."

It’s more about Oprah herself, free associating, selling out her own world as she gushes over those flowers and trees. For example, in seminar 1, she socks it to Hollywood, the source of 50 percent of her guests. This is the same Oprah who does a live special the day after the Oscars and often plugs the worst films just to get ratings.

In that segment, Oprah seems to forget who she is to score points with Tolle, or rationalize why she’s involved in this beyond the corporate money being reaped:

"Everyone complains about the media and the movies. I mean, if you just look at the Academy Awards this year, and the kinds of movies that were made this year, and it’s all a reflection of who we are. You say in the book," Winfrey says to Tolle, "that we’re the species that will go and watch people be maimed and killed and murdered for our entertainment."

We can assume she wasn’t talking about "Juno," "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly," "The Savages," "Enchanted," "Atonement," "La Vie En Rose," "Michael Clayton," "Elizabeth: The Golden Age," "Into the Wild," "Away from Her" or "Charlie Wilson’s War" — all films that had nominations. Just three films featured overt violence this year — "No Country for Old Men," "There Will Be Blood" and "Sweeney Todd."

But it’s the zealous excitement in Winfrey’s eyes when she says it that makes the difference. Those three films are now the whole Academy Awards, and therefore "the media." You can already feel hearts pounding! She’s right! Hollywood had better look at flowers and trees in a new way.

What makes Oprah’s seminars even more creepy are the "study groups" she has lined up for Tolle at bookstores and other locations around the world. They’re all hooked up to the seminars through Skype, and the members can ask questions. They all have that same glazed-over look as people giving testimonials on late-night infomercials.

"I consider this to be a sacred moment when we can all come together … and share in this work," Winfrey says at the start of seminar 6. And why not? You’ll notice that she, not Tolle, has the sole copyright on the broadcasts. Ka ching!

But don’t worry about Eckhart Tolle. His "power of now" is all about his store. All roads lead to his merchandise, which is prominently featured on his Web site and accessed from Oprah’s.

His is a costly philosophy. Books, tapes, DVDs — all of it becomes quite expensive when added up, making Tolle no different than Scientology, Kabbalah or any other shiny new religion. Tolle even sells teaching tools "for professionals" — "A Guide for the Spiritual Teacher and Health Practitioner" — even though it’s unclear what is the basis of his own educational background.

Are we supposed to take this seriously? As Tolle, himself, says to Oprah, "It’s better to laugh at madness."

Thoughtful Conversion

Most people don't think. Okay, that may be a bit harsh. We DO ponder things like what we will have for dinner, what movies we might watch, what political candidate we most likely agree with. But we DON'T think about the things that we believe. When you are speaking to a friend about the change that Christ has made in your life you are likely not using Jesus' name very frequently. You hem and haw around the subject. You speak of how things have changed "since you started going to church' or now that you have found "faith". But many people have faith in some crazy stuff! And there are lots of churches to attend. So in a way you are distracting your own argument. What you need to be saying is, "Hey, Bob, the craziest thing happened to me. I went to church and really felt something! It seemed like God was calling out to me. Did you ever have that?" Suddenly, Bob- your unchurched friend- is asked for his opinion and confronted with the possibility that God might actually be speaking to both you and HIM! That is important because Bob never thinks about God. And he certainly never questions why he is so unfulfilled in his present faith relationship that he never attends church. He, in fact, in scared of God and is really afraid of surrendering to his will. (He might end up a missionary in Africa!)

Real conversion begins with the thoughtful processing about what we believe and why. This world view assessment is crucial for repentance. God spent much time trying to get Israel to examine their deeds and lifestyle choices. He even brought judgment for the purpose of turning back the hearts of his children to prayer. The thinking process isn't an easy one. I demands of a person the ability to say I have been wrong up until now. This rarely happens in older people. They are afraid to admit that they have made mistakes walking the wrong way in this life. Sad really. That our faith is trapped behind the formidable doorway of our pride. For the believer, God has permission to crush your pride, in the interest of your soul. But for the unbeliever our evangelistic job is to prod them with questions and thoughts that the Holy Spirit can use to get them to think.

After thinking that there just might be a God who is trying to get my attention I am open for an expereince with that God. If he turns out to be a loving, caring and benificent God then I am more likely to fall in love with him.

Someone asked me the other day if I get defensive regarding the gospel. Well the truth is I know it is TRUE. And since that is my mental stance, I find myself less threatened by the bloviation of the "other side". See, I was on the other side when God reached down to me. So how about you, are you sure you are walking in the truth?

Why Go?

So you think I am crazy! Every year I take my boys fishing with their uncle and cousin and we "enjoy" the arduous workout of paddling a canoe for some 20-30 miles to camp on some mosquito infested island. It is hard work. This years trip was more arduous than most. We traveled between 45-50 miles round trip. We went through bogs that were deeper than our waistes, we climbed hills (Heart attack Hill!)for what seemed like hours, we portaged an 80 pound canoe over a mile on one portage, we descended down slopes that scared me without a pack on my back, and we got cold, wet, and rained on. The mosquitoes are worse than in the Costa Rican rainforest. The black flies were flying into our eyes and mouths all day long. Fun, eh!

At 50, I am personally challenged by the outdoors. It stands challenging me to persevere, to overcome, and to rise to the occassion.In that way, it is like life. Life has significant challenges that cause many to shrink back in fear. I have friends that turned back in fear at various moments of their lives- failed to pursue the goal of meeting the challenges. To me, to turn back in fear or to fail to meet the challenges is like dying. If life is a challenge- death is failing to meet it. And I ain't dead yet!

True enough, I am more tired when I return from those kinds of vacations. It takes a little recuperating time. But if you notice there is a smile on my face. It is satisfying to face the obstacles and come out on top. Tired yes- but more alive than ever before... Inspite of the fact that I have to eat my own cooking!